"As for the château, you are thinking that, when you are once free, you will defend it! So you won't be free until we have got through with it, unless——"
"Unless I pay?"
"Unless you sign, monsieur le marquis! for your signature is sacred to anyone who knows, as your faithful Bellinde does, what the honor of a gentleman like you is worth."
"What do you want me to sign?" said the marquis, readily resigned to his fate whenever money was in question.
Proserpine kept silence for an instant. Her face assumed an expression of diabolical malice, mingled nevertheless with a strange perturbation, as if she were somewhat inclined to blush for her temerity.
"Come, come," said the marquis, "speak, and let us have done with it at once, before your companion wakes."
"My companion is not my husband, as you must know, monsieur le marquis," replied the amazon in a mincing tone. "He is very ugly and very stupid—and, although you are no younger than he, you still have attractions—to which I have not always been so insensible as I seemed."
"What nonsense are you talking, my poor Bellinde? Come, a truce to jesting. Let us have done!"
"I am not jesting, marquis! I have always had an intense longing to be a woman of quality, and, if I must conclude, this is my last and only word: Be free! no ransom! Go, hurry home and defend your château, if I cannot prevent them from attacking it; and whatever the result of the affair may be, you will keep the promise you are going to put in writing, to make me your lawful wife and sole legatee."
"My wife, you!" cried the marquis, recoiling in utter stupefaction; "can you dream of such a thing? My legatee? when Mario——"