"Eight."
"Six."
"I said eight," said Annalise, stopping and looking at him with lifted
eye-brows and exactly imitating the distinctness with which the
Princess had just said "I said tea."
"Six is an enormous sum. Why, what would you do with it?"
"That is my affair. Perhaps buy food," she said with a malicious
side-glance.
"I tell you there shall be a cook."
"A cook," said Annalise counting on her fingers,--"and a good cook,
observe--not a cook like the Frau Pearce--a cook, then, no more rude
names, and eight hundred marks. Then I stop. I suffer. I am silent."
"It cannot be done. I cannot give you eight."
"_C'est l'amour, c'est l'amour_.... The Princess waits for her tea. I
will prepare it for her this once. I am good, you see, at heart. But I
must have eight hundred marks. _Cest l'amo-o-o-o-o-our_."
"I will give you seven," said Fritzing, doing rapid sums in his head.
Seven hundred was something under thirty-five pounds. He would still
have five pounds left for housekeeping. How long that would last he
admitted to himself that probably only heaven knew, but he hoped that
with economy it might be made to carry them over a fortnight; and
surely by the end of a fortnight he would have hit on a way of getting
fresh supplies from Germany? "I will give you seven hundred.
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