“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—­”

“Saw her is very proper!” said Carabine.  “I will remember it.”

“She told me to wait till that wretched Marneffe was dead; and I agreed, and forgave her for having admitted the attentions of Hulot.  Whether the devil had her in hand I don’t know, but from that instant that woman has humored my every whim, complied with all my demands —­never for one moment has she given me cause to suspect her!—­”

“That is supremely clever!” said Carabine to Madame Nourrisson, who nodded in sign of assent.

“My faith in that woman,” said Montes, and he shed a tear, “was a match for my love.  Just now, I was ready to fight everybody at table—­”

“So I saw,” said Carabine.

“And if I am cheated, if she is going to be married, if she is at this moment in Steinbock’s arms, she deserves a thousand deaths!  I will kill her as I would smash a fly—­”

“And how about the gendarmes, my son?” said Madame Nourrisson, with a smile that made your flesh creep.

“And the police agents, and the judges, and the assizes, and all the set-out?” added Carabine.

“You are bragging, my dear fellow,” said the old woman, who wanted to know all the Brazilian’s schemes of vengeance.

“I will kill her,” he calmly repeated.  “You called me a savage.—­Do you imagine that I am fool enough to go, like a Frenchman, and buy poison at the chemist’s shop?—­During the time while we were driving her, I thought out my means of revenge, if you should prove to be right as concerns Valerie.  One of my negroes has the most deadly of animal poisons, and incurable anywhere but in Brazil.  I will administer it to Cydalise, who will give it to me; then by the time when death is a certainty to Crevel and his wife, I shall be beyond the Azores with your cousin, who will be cured, and I will marry her.  We have our own little tricks, we savages!—­Cydalise,” said he, looking at the country girl, “is the animal I need.—­How much does she owe?”

“A hundred thousand francs,” said Cydalise.

“She says little—­but to the purpose,” said Carabine, in a low tone to Madame Nourrisson.