"So much the better, because, as far as I am concerned, I should be in a regular fix if I had to make a solitary journey back through the land of those awful Bongos, those amiable Dinkas, not to mention the Shillooks and so many others. I am rather inclined to think that, for my sake, at all events, Madame de Guéran would do well not to decide in your favour."
"To tell you the truth, my dear fellow, I am afraid she will decide neither for one nor the other."
"Precisely my fear; she shrinks from inflicting too severe a wound on the rejected one. We are not behaving generously towards her; we take away from her all freedom of choice, and, very possibly, we prevent her from saying what she would like to say."
"Nevertheless, my very dear friend, I cannot propose that, instead of descending this hill to-morrow with all our companions, for the purpose of visiting the Niam-Niam, you should retrace your steps, cheered by the society of my faithful Joseph and the donkey, of which, in that case, you would be anxious to deprive the caravan."
"I am perfectly sure of it, my dear de Morin, and yet, if we had lived in another age than our own, we should hare found some means of coming to an understanding."
"Yes, the King's Musketeers, for instance, in our position, would not have hesitated to draw their swords. I have often thought about it myself. That age was a good one, and the sword settles matters so completely."
"We might revive the custom very easily. In the heart of Africa one cannot be said to belong to any age. I am sure that when we paid our visit to those Bongo women we had no very clear idea of what century we were in. At all events on that occasion nobody could have objected to our going a step backwards, to the seventeenth or eighteenth century in imagination."
"My notion, I perceive, makes you smile, and, after all, we had better let it drop. If I happened to kill you, or to be killed by you, Madame de Guéran, I am sure, would detest me, or hate you, as the case might be. She is not very fond of the eighteenth century; she belongs to the present day, and she is journeying on through Africa, pursuing one sole idea without paying much attention to Bongo customs."
"Very possibly so. Thus, my poor friend, we can only wait."
"As you say, we can only wait, and, in truth, it is the only course open to us just at present."