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Updated: May 20, 2025
Feeling reassured by this consideration, I decided to be guided in my action by the result of the interview which I was going to have with Kondjé-Gul's mother. It was necessary for me to commence by putting a stop to the foolish proceedings of this woman, who was perhaps acting unintentionally as Kiusko's accomplice in schemes the object of which she could not foresee.
This is the second time he has been here to beg me for Kondjé-Gul's hand. He is quite crazy! crazy!" "Oh, then he has been before! But why did not you inform me?" "It is true: I had forgotten to do so!" she replied. I deemed it useless to appear to press her any more on the matter. Had Madame Murrah tried to keep me in ignorance of these visits of Count Kiusko's?
In the morning I returned home and arranged all my affairs ready for any eventuality; then when all was in order I went after two of my friends, and asked them to hold themselves ready to act as my seconds in an affair which I might be compelled by grave circumstances to settle that very day. Having obtained their promise to do so, I proceeded to Kiusko's in the Rue de l'Elysée.
"By the by, my dear aunt," I said to her one morning in a perfectly unconcerned tone of voice, "you have not told me anything more about Kiusko's intended marriage." "Ah, there is no longer any question of it!" she answered me. "He presented himself too late: the fair Kondjé-Gul's heart is occupied. She is even engaged to one of her own relations I hear."
The dance being now over, I left Maud, and, agitated by an anxious kind of feeling, walked up to the boudoir. They were standing up, and Kiusko's back being turned to the door, he did not see me enter. Kondjé-Gul saw me and said: "André, come and give me your arm!" At this unusually bold request, Daniel could not repress a gesture of astonishment, and cast a bewildered glance at me.
She informed me that she had been to Madame Murrah's the day before. "Did you commence your overtures on behalf of Kiusko's grand scheme?" I asked her. "Yes," she answered. "And were they entertained?" "Oh, you are going too fast! According to Mussulman usage, matters don't proceed at that rate. We did not get any further than the preliminaries.
We decided that I should go to her mother to concert with her and dictate to her the precise terms of a refusal which should cut short all Kiusko's hopes. We were just then emerging from the narrow avenue, and Maud and Edward were joining us again. Our ride came to an end without any other incident of note, except indeed that it appeared to me Daniel was watching Kondjé and myself, as if he wanted to guess what had taken place during our tête-
And now I had woke up in consternation at finding myself caught in this stupid trap which I had permitted them to set in my path. Kondjé-Gul's mother had become Kiusko's accomplice. How was I to defeat this conspiracy between two minds animated by consuming passions, resolute and pitiless, who were determined not to be deterred by any scruples or any sense of honour?
Having made up my mind to avoid all confidences, I kept my valet in the room with me, dressing myself very deliberately, and without any compassion for Kiusko's impatience. This compelled us, directly we were mounted, to gallop to the Bois, a procedure not very favourable to confidential effusions. We only joined the party at the Avenue of Acacias on their way back.
Feeling certain that Kondjé-Gul had not told her anything of the incident of the day before, I divined that she had just left Kiusko's, where she had been, no doubt, during our interview. "May I ask you, then, what you propose to do, now that Count Kiusko knows everything?" I continued, controlling my anger. "I shall do what my daughter's happiness impels me to do.
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