Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas Alexandre; Coward David;

Author:Dumas, Alexandre; Coward, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2008-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

55

A TALK ABOUT STOCKS

SOME days after this meeting, Albert de Morcerf visited the Count of Monte Cristo at his house in the Champs Elysées, which had already assumed that palace-like appearance which the count’s princely fortune enabled him to give even to his most temporary residences. He came to renew the thanks of Madame Danglars which had been already conveyed to the count by a letter, signed ‘Baronne Danglars, née Hermine de Servieux.’ Albert was accompanied by Lucien Debray who, joining in his friend’s conversation, added some passing compliments, the source of which the count’s talent for finesse easily enabled him to guess. He was convinced that Lucien’s visit to him was to be attributed to a double feeling of curiosity, the larger half of which sentiment emanated from the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. In short, Madame Danglars, not being able personally to examine in detail the domestic economy and household arrangements of a man who gave away horses worth 30,000 francs, and went to the Opera with a Greek slave wearing diamonds worth a million francs, had deputed those eyes, by which she was accustomed to see, to give her a faithful account of the mode of life of this astonishing man. But the count did not appear to suspect there could be the slightest connection between Lucien’s visit and the baroness’s curiosity.

‘You are in constant communication, then, with Baron Danglars?’ inquired the count of Albert de Morcerf.

‘Yes, count, you know what I told you?’

‘Everything remains the same, then, in that quarter?’

‘It is more than ever a settled thing,’ said Lucien; and, considering this remark was all that he was at that time called upon to make, he adjusted the glass to his eye, and biting the top of his gold-headed cane, began to make the tour of the apartment, examining the arms and the pictures.

‘Ah,’ said Monte Cristo, ‘I did not expect the affair would have been so promptly concluded.’

‘Oh, things take their course without our assistance. Whilst we are forgetting them, they are falling into their appointed order; and when, again, our attention is directed to them, we are surprised at the progress they have made towards the proposed end. My father and M. Danglars served together in Spain, my father in the army and M. Danglars in the commissariat department. It was there that my father, ruined by the revolution, and M. Danglars, who never had possessed any patrimony, both laid the foundation of their different fortunes.’

‘Yes,’ said Monte Cristo, ‘I think M. Danglars mentioned that in a visit which I paid him; and,’ continued he, casting a side-glance at Lucien, who was turning over the leaves of an album, ‘is Mademoiselle Eugénie pretty—for, I think, I remember that to be her name?’

‘Very pretty, or rather, very beautiful,’ replied Albert, ‘but of that style of beauty, which I do not appreciate; I am an ungrateful fellow.’

‘You speak as if you were already her husband.’

‘Ah!’ returned Albert, looking round to see what Lucien was doing.

‘Really,’ said

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