"Wait one moment," M. Périères called out hurriedly. "It is, I presume, quite understood that M. Desrioux is to be replaced only in his capacity as our doctor, and not as an aspirant—a candidate—an intended—"
"Make your minds quite easy, gentlemen," replied Madame de Guéran, "I will never marry a gambler. The new-comer is without the pale of our compact."
"Under that gratifying understanding, Baroness, we will take our leave for the present, and will call to-morrow for fresh orders."
CHAPTER VI.
MM. Périères and de Morin lighted their cigars as they descended the stairs, and then walked arm in arm down the Boulevard Malesherbes, on their way to the Chaussée D'Antin.
Destined, by virtue of their engagement with Madame de Guéran, to live together for a long time, they were doing their best to forget their rivalry, and to think only of the great adventure they were about to attempt. Though, in the presence of the Baroness, they had thought it right to assume utter indifference to the dangers which menaced them, and on which, lest they should ignore them, she laid such stress, yet, when they found themselves by themselves, they did not in the least under-rate the serious nature of the undertaking.
They knew, well enough, how noxious the interior of Africa is to Europeans, and that, out of every ten explorers, three or four at the outside live to see their native land again, where even they often succumb to the sequelæ of maladies contracted in that deadly climate. They called to mind the fate of Richardson and of young Overweg, barely thirty, who both died, worn out by fever, on the borders of Bornou; of Vögel, who was assassinated by order of the Prince of the Waday territory; of Vaudey, the uncle of the brothers Poncet, who was killed at Gondokoro; of Brun-Eouet, Steudner, and Lesaint, who died from sickness and over-work; of Mdlle. Tinne, her mother, and her aunt, the Baroness Van Capellen, and many others whose names serve to swell the sadly long obituary of African travellers. They knew, too, that these pioneers of civilization, these grand missionaries, had, before death released them, experienced human suffering to its fullest extent. But they were young, brave, hardy, trusting to luck, anxious to see everything they could, eager to learn, and, above all, in love. And it was not to be wondered at that these Parisians, although so difficult to touch, and so thoroughly on their guard, should have been taken by surprise, so to speak, by a love as unselfish and sincere as it was sudden. For they were both of them men of a high order of intellect, with their hearts in the right place, and though, naturally, they had not been altogether innocent of the follies of youth, they were far too refined to allow those follies to take any real hold of them, and so it happened that when, weary of their mode of life, and heart-whole, they met Madame de Guéran, they gave themselves up to her without reflection, without hesitation, charmed by the repose of her beauty, fascinated by the simple grace of her mind, and obeying an instinctive necessity for a purifying and ennobling; influence.
She was, indeed, a woman eminently calculated to attract such high-minded, straightforward natures as these. Putting aside the question of mere personal beauty, which was, indeed, conspicuous in her, Laura de Guéran was immeasurably superior to the general run of women, by reason of the originality and refinement of her mind, her fascinating conversational talents, her elevated ideas, her reliable judgment, her artistic nature, her disdain of all beaten tracks and everything commonplace or conventional, her charity, her courage, her uprightness, her devotion to her friends, her horror of evil, and her enthusiasm for good. She had merely said to them—"I am going this way; come with me." And, subjugated and submissive, they obeyed her, without troubling themselves very much as to where, or how far they were going; each of them simply determined not to remain behind whilst it was in his power to be side by side with Madame de Guéran.
As soon as they reached the Chaussée d'Antin, they gave themselves a treat by extolling the object of their adoration, and praising her many merits, and they forgot the dangers of the projected expedition in the ecstacy of the thought that it would be accomplished with her.
Towards midnight, when they were about to separate, M. Périères said to M. de Morin—