«He shall. I mean him to know. He shall know now.» And as Monsieur de Mercoeur and Madeleine were at that moment approaching, Jeremy departed at once in quest of the Governor of Tortuga.
Monsieur d'Ogeron, that slight, elegant gentleman who had brought with him to the New World the courtliness of the 01d, could scarcely dissemble his distress. Monsieur d'Ogeron had grown wealthy in his governorship and he had ambitions for his motherless daughters, whom he contemplated removing before, very long to France.
He said so, not crudely or bluntly, but with an infinite delicacy calculated to spare Mr. Pitt's feelings, and he added that she was already promised in marriage.
Jeremy's face was overspread by blank astonishment.
«Promised! But she told me nothing of this!» He forgot that he had never really given her such opportunity.
«It may be that she does not realize. You know how these things are contrived in France.»
Mr. Pitt began an argument upon the advantages of natural selection, nipped by Monsieur d'Ogeron before he had properly developed it.
«My dear Mr. Pitt, my friend, consider, I beg, your position in the world. You are a filibuster in — short, an adventurer. I do not use the term offensively. I merely mean that you are a man who lives by adventure. What prospect of security, of domesticity, could you offer a delicately–nurtured girl? If you, yourself, had a daughter, should you gladly give her to such a man?»
«If she loved him,» said Mr. Pitt.
«Ah! But what is love, my friend?»