“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.