"Listen!" cried Montes, fully aware at last of this masterpiece of
womankind "you will show me Valerie--"

"And Count Steinbock.--Certainly!" said Madame Nourrisson.

For the past ten minutes the old woman had been watching the
Brazilian; she saw that he was an instrument tuned up to the murderous
pitch she needed; and, above all, so effectually blinded, that he
would never heed who had led him on to it, and she spoke:--

"Cydalise, my Brazilian jewel, is my niece, so her concerns are partly
mine. All this catastrophe will be the work of a few minutes, for a
friend of mine lets the furnished room to Count Steinbock where
Valerie is at this moment taking coffee--a queer sort of coffee, but
she calls it her coffee. So let us understand each other, Brazil!--I
like Brazil, it is a hot country.--What is to become of my niece?"

"You old ostrich," said Montes, the plumes in the woman's bonnet
catching his eye, "you interrupted me.--If you show me--if I see
Valerie and that artist together--"

"As you would wish to be--" said Carabine; "that is understood."

"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, hand