"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!"
"She had told me this so often," Montes went on, regardless of the courtesan's mockery, "that I had a lovely house fitted up in the heart of that vast estate. I came back to France to fetch Valerie, and the first evening I saw her—"