The pack were still pursuing Eugenie and her millions; but the
hounds, more in number, lay better on the scent, and beset the prey more
unitedly. If Charles could have dropped from the Indian Isles, he would
have found the same people and the same interests. Madame des Grassins,
to whom Eugenie was full of kindness and courtesy, still persisted in
tormenting the Cruchots. Eugenie, as in former days, was the central
figure of the picture; and Charles, as heretofore, would still have
been the sovereign of all. Yet there had been some progress. The flowers
which the president formerly presented to Eugenie on her birthdays and
fete-days had now become a daily institution. Every evening he brought
the rich heiress a huge and magnificent bouquet, which Madame Cornoiller
placed conspicuously in a vase, and secretly threw into a corner of the
court-yard when the visitors had departed.

Early in the spring, Madame des Grassins attempted to trouble the peace
of the Cruchotines by talking to Eugenie of the Marquis de Froidfond,
whose ancient and ruined family might be restored if the heiress would
give him back his estates through marriage. Madame des Grassins rang
the changes on the peerage and the title of marquise, until, mistaking
Eugenie's disdainful smile for acquiescence, she went about proclaiming
that the marriage with "Monsieur Cruchot" was not nearly as certain as
people thought.

"Though Monsieur de Froidfond is fifty," she said, "he does not look
older than Monsieur Cruchot. He is a widower, and he has children,
that's true. But then he is a marquis; he will be peer of France; and
in times like these where you will find a better match? I know it for
a fact that Pere Grandet, when he put all his money into Froidfond,
intended to graft himself upon that stock; he often told me so. He was a
deep one, that old man!"

"Ah! Nanon," said Eugenie, one night as she was going to bed, "how is it
that in seven years he has never once written to me?"

XIII

While these events were happening in Saumur, Charles was making his
fortune in the Indies. His commercial outfit had sold well. He began by
realizing a sum of six thousand dollars. Crossing the line had brushed a
good many cobwebs out of his brain; he perceived that the best means of
attaining fortune in tropical regions, as well as in Europe, was to
buy and sell men. He went to the coast of Africa and bought Negroes,
combining his traffic in human flesh with that o