For the past ten minutes the old woman had been watching the Brazilian; she saw that he was an instrument tuned up to the murderous pitch she needed; and, above all, so effectually blinded, that he would never heed who had led him on to it, and she spoke:-- “Cydalise, my Brazilian jewel, is my niece, so her concerns are partly mine. All this catastrophe will be the work of a few minutes, for a friend of mine lets the furnished room to Count Steinbock where Valerie is at this moment taking coffee--a queer sort of coffee, but she calls it her coffee. So let us understand each other, Brazil!--I like Brazil, it is a hot country.--What is to become of my niece?” “You old ostrich,” said Montes, the plumes in the woman’s bonnet catching his eye, “you interrupted me.--If you show me--if I see Valerie and that artist together--” “As you would wish to be--” said Carabine; “that is understood.” “Then I will take this girl and carry her away--” “Where?” asked Carabine. “To Brazil,” replied the Baron. “I will make her my wife. My uncle left me ten leagues square of entailed estate; that is how I still have that house and home. I have a hundred negroes--nothing but negroes and negresses and negro brats, all bought by my uncle--” “Nephew to a nigger-driver,” said Carabine, with a grimace. “That needs some consideration.--Cydalise, child, are you fond of the blacks?” “Pooh! Carabine, no nonsense,” said the old woman. “The deuce is in it! Monsieur and I are doing business.” “If I take up another Frenchwoman, I mean to have her to myself,” the Brazilian went on. “I warn you, mademoiselle, I am king there, and not a constitutional king. I am Czar; my subjects are mine by purchase, and no one can escape from my kingdom, which is a hundred leagues from any human settlement, hemmed in by savages on the interior, and divided from the sea by a wilderness as wide as France.” “I should prefer a garret here.” “So thought I,” said Montes, “since I sold all my land and possessions at Rio to come back to Madame Marneffe.” “A man does not make such a voyage for nothing,” remarked Madame Nourrisson. “You have a right to look for love for your own sake, particularly being so good-looking.--Oh, he is very handsome!” said she to Carabine. “Very handsome, handsomer than the _Postillon de Longjumeau_,” replied the courtesan. Cydalise took the Brazilian’s hand, but he released it as politely as he could. “I came back for Madame Marneffe,” the man went on where he had left off, “but you do not know why I was three years thinking about it.” “No, savage!” said Carabine. “Well, she had so repeatedly told me that she longed to live with me alone in a desert--” “Oh, ho! he is not a savage after all,” cried Carabine, with a shout of laughter. “He is of the highly-civilized tribe of Flats!”