"What then?" asked the Count.
"And then... my daughter Éowénie has fled."
"What are you telling me?"
"The truth, my dear Count. By the earth-tones of Yavanne, how happy you are to have neither wife nor children, you!"
"You think so?" said the Count sharply, before hastening to add, "and Mlle. Éowénie?"
"She could not endure the affront that wretch had done to us, and has asked, or rather taken, permission to depart."
"What do you wish, my dear baron," said the Count. "Family chagrins, but chagrins that are supportable for a millionaire. Whatever Gandault may have said in his dotage when he fancied himself a seducer of hobbitesses, a practical man realizes that money compensates for many things; and you, the king of millionaires, the second coming of Durin of the Golden Waste-paper Baskets, ought to be consoled sooner than any."
