“I have sometimes done so,” he smiled.  “Is there anything in which I can be of service?”

“Time is short,” was her answer.  “Let us get at once to the point.  I am planning to go into the work long carried on by that weak-minded Colonization Society; but on certain lines of my own.”

“Explain, Countess!”

“It is my belief that we should deport the blacks from this country.  Very well, I am willing to devote certain moneys and certain energies to that purpose.  Granted I found it advisable and could obtain proper support, I might perhaps not return to Hungary for a time.”

“Kammerer!” broke in Carlisle suddenly, “Listen!  Do you hear?  It’s what we’ve said!  It is precisely what you yourself have always said.”

“That iss it!—­that iss it!” exclaimed the young German.  “The colonization—­remoof them from this country to another, where they shall be by themselves.  That only iss wise, yess.  Elsewise must great war come—­else must this Union be lost!  Ah, Madam; ah, Madam!  How great your heart, your mind.  I kiss your hand.”

“Listen!” she interrupted.  “There are about three and one-third millions of them now.  Say they are worth, old and young, large and little, one thousand dollars a head—­monstrous thing, to put a price upon a human head, but suppose it.  It would amount to but a few billions of dollars.  What would a war cost between these two sections?  Perhaps a million dollars a day!  How much cheaper could these slaves be purchased and deported from these shores!  Their owners regard them as property.  The laws protect that belief.  The Constitution establishes the laws.  There is no peaceful way to end the turmoil, save by the purchase of these people.  That is a solution.  It will prevent a war.  Let them be sent away to a place where they belong, rather than here.”

“My dear Countess,” said Carlisle, “you are, as usual, brilliant.  Your imagination vaults—­your daring is splendid.  But as usual you are visionary and impractical.  Buy them?  To do this would require the credit of a nation!  It would be subversive of all peace and all industry.  You do not realize the sums required.  You do not realize how vast are the complications.”

She stepped closer to him in her eagerness.

“All it needs is money, and management.  A start, and the country will follow.  Mr. Fillmore himself was about to recommend it, in his last message.  Let me furnish the money, and do you attend to the complications.”

Carlisle rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  “It’s beautiful; it may be wise, but it’s impossible.  It would take a king’s credit.”

“At least we might begin with such funds as are already at hand,” smiled the Countess St. Auban.  “It might be difficult?  I suppose the building of the pyramids was difficult.  Yet they were begun.  Yet they are finished.  Yet they stand, complete, to-day.”