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Albert was accompanied by Lucien Debray, who added to his friend's words some compliments that were no doubt not official -- though, with his sharp instincts, the count could be quite sure of their source. It even appeared that Lucien had come to see him partly out of a feeling of curiosity, half of which came from the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. Indeed, he might safely have guessed that Mme Danglars, being unable to use her own eyes to explore the interior of the home of a man who gave away horses worth thirty thousand francs and who went to the opera with a Greek slave wearing a million francs' worth of diamonds, had instructed the eyes through which she was accustomed to see such things to inform her about this interior. But the count gave no sign of suspecting that there was any connection between Lucien's visit and the baroness's curiosity.

A few days after this encounter, Albert de Morcerf visited the Count of Monte Cristo in his house on the Champs-Elysées; it had already taken on the palatial appearance that the count, thanks to his vast fortune, gave to even the most temporary accommodation. Morcerf had come to reiterate Mme Danglars' thanks, already conveyed in a letter signed "Baroness Danglars, née Herminie de Servieux".

"It still applies?"

"More than ever," said Lucien. "The matter is settled." Whereupon Lucien, doubtless judging that this word thrown into the conversation gave him the right to retire from it, put his tortoiseshell monocle into one eye, chewed the gold pommel of his cane and began to walk round the room, looking at the shields and the pictures.

"Are you in almost continual contact with Baron Danglars?" he asked Albert de Morcerf.

"Yes, Monsieur le Comte. You know what I told you."

"Ah," said Monte Cristo, "listening to you, I should not have believed in such a rapid solution."

"What do you expect? Things proceed in ways that one does not suspect. While you are not thinking about them, they are thinking about you and, when you turn round, you are surprised at the distance they have covered. My father and Monsieur Danglars served together in Spain, my father in the army, Monsieur Danglars in supplies. My father was ruined by the Revolution, and Monsieur Danglars had never had any inheritance, so that is where both of them laid the foundations -- in my father's case of his fine political and military career, and in Monsieur Danglars' of his admirable political and financial one."

"Very pretty; or, rather, very beautiful," Albert replied. "But it is a type of beauty that does not appeal to me. I am not worthy of her!"

"Oh!" said Albert, looking around in his turn to see what Lucien was doing.

"You already speak as if you were her husband!"

"Huh!" Monte Cristo exclaimed. "That's no reason. Aren't you rich yourself?"

"Yes, indeed," said the count. "I think that, during the visit I paid him, Monsieur Danglars spoke to me of that. And," he continued, glancing at Lucien, who was leafing through an album, "Mademoiselle Eugénie is pretty, isn't she? I seem to remember her name is Eugénie."

"Mademoiselle Danglars is too rich for me," Morcerf said. "It scares me."

"My father has an income of something like fifty thousand livres and he might give me ten or twelve, perhaps, when I marry."

"Do you know…" Monte Cristo said, lowering his voice, "you don't seem to me very enthusiastic about this marriage."

"I admit, that is a modest sum," said the count, "especially in Paris. But money is not everything in this world, and a fine name and good social standing count for something, too. Your name is famous, your position is magnificent; and, in addition to that, the Comte de Morcerf is a soldier and it is a pleasure to see the integrity of Bayard allied to the poverty of Du Guesclin. Disinterestedness is the finest ray that can shine from a noble sword. I must say that, on the contrary, I find this match as appropriate as may be: Mademoiselle Danglars will enrich you and you will ennoble her!"

"I admit," Monte Cristo continued, "that I find it hard to understand your repugnance for a rich and beautiful young girl."

Albert shook his head and remained thoughtful. "There is something more," he said.

"From whom, then? You told me that your father was in favour of the marriage."

"Oh, good Lord!" said Morcerf. "The repugnance, if there is any, does not only come from me."

"I don't know if that is it," said Albert. "What I do know is that I feel that, if this marriage takes place, she will be unhappy about it. We should have met six weeks ago to talk business, but I had such migraines…"

"From my mother, and she has a prudent and unfailing eye. Well, she does not favour the match. I don't know what she has against the Danglars."

"It's understandable," said the count, in a slightly unnatural voice. "The countess, who is the epitome of distinction, aristocracy and good taste, might have misgivings about embracing a family that is low-born, coarse and ignoble. It's only natural."

"Real ones?" the count asked, smiling.

"Don't marry her, then," said the count.

"Oh, quite real… no doubt caused by fear. So the appointment was delayed for two months. You understand, there is no hurry. I am not yet twenty-one and Eugénie is only seventeen; but the two months are over at the end of next week. We shall have to go through with it. You cannot imagine, Count, how much it bothers me… Oh, how lucky you are to be free!"

"My father would be too disappointed if I did not marry Mademoiselle Danglars."

"Then be free yourself. What is stopping you, I want to know?"

"Then marry her," said the count, with an odd shrug of the shoulders.

"I shall see, I shall try. You will advise me, won't you? And, if possible, get me out of this trap. I do believe that, to avoid causing pain to my dear mother, I would fall out with the count."

Monte Cristo turned away. He seemed moved. "Well, now," he said to Debray, who was sitting in a deep armchair at the far end of the room, holding a pencil in his right hand and a notebook in the left. "What are you doing? A drawing from Poussin?"

"Yes," said Morcerf. "But for my mother that would not be a disappointment, but a pain."

"Listen, my dear fellow," said Lucien. "The Count of Monte Cristo here will tell you, as the Italians do, Danaro e santità Metà della Metà And that's a lot. So when I hear stories like that, I shrug my shoulders."

"Arithmetic?"

"I?" he answered calmly. "A drawing? No, I love painting too much for that. No, I am doing the very opposite of painting: arithmetic."

"You were talking about Haiti?" said Monte Cristo.

"That's not his best coup," said Morcerf. "Didn't he make a million this year with Spanish bonds?"

"Yes, I am calculating. It concerns you, indirectly, Viscount. I am calculating what the firm of Danglars made on the last rise in Haitian stock: from 206, the fund rose to 409 in three days, and the provident banker bought a lot at 206. He must have made three hundred thousand livres."

"Oh, Haiti is something else; Haiti is the écarté of French speculation. You may like bouillotte, be attached to whist, be mad about boston, and yet tire of them all; but one always comes back to écarté: it is in a class of its own. So yesterday Monsieur Danglars sold at 406 and pocketed three hundred thousand francs. If he had waited until today, when the rate fell to 205; instead of gaining three hundred thousand francs, he would have lost twenty or twenty-five thousand."

"The devil!" said the count. "Monsieur Danglars plays to win or lose three hundred thousand francs in a day. He must be immensely rich?"

"How?"

"Why did the rate fall from 409 to 205?" Monte Cristo asked. "I must apologize, but I am very ignorant when it comes to all these manoeuvrings on the exchange."

"I should cure her; it would be a service to her future son-in-law."

"How could I, if her husband can't?" Lucien asked. "You know what the baroness is like. No one has any sway over her; she does precisely as she wishes."

"Because," Albert said with a laugh, "news comes in dribs and drabs, and one piece is unlike another."

"Yes. Your position as the minister's secretary gives you great authority as a source of news. As soon as you open your mouth, stockbrokers are hurrying to telegraph what you have said. Let her lose a hundred thousand francs or so straight off, and it will make her more cautious."

"But you are reasonable, Lucien, and you know how news changes, since you are at the source of it, so you should stop her," said Morcerf.

"What?"

"He's not the one who gambles!" Lucien exclaimed. "It's Madame Danglars. She is really daring."

"Dammit, man, it's quite easy. I'd teach her a lesson."

"A lesson?"

"If I was in your place…" Albert said.

"I don't follow you," Lucien stammered.

Lucien forced a laugh, while Monte Cristo, though apparently not at all interested in the conversation, had not missed a word of it. His penetrating eye even thought it detected a secret behind the private secretary's embarrassment. This embarrassment had altogether escaped Albert, but it resulted in Lucien cutting his visit short. He clearly felt ill at ease. The count, seeing him to the door, whispered a few words to him, and he replied: "Very well, Count, I agree."

"But it's as clear as daylight," the young man replied with a naïvety that was entirely unaffected. "Tell her one fine morning about something quite unheard of: news from the telegraph that you alone can know; for example, that Henri IV was seen at Gabrielle's yesterday. It will mean that stock prices will go up, she will hazard her money on it and certainly lose when Beauchamp writes the following day: 'Well-informed people are quite wrong to say that King Henri IV was seen at Gabrielle's yesterday. The report is entirely unfounded. King Henri IV has not left the Pont Neuf.'"

"Don't you think," he said, "on reflection, that you were wrong to speak in that way about your mother-in-law in front of Debray?"

The count came back to young Morcerf.

"So much so that the baroness rarely comes to the house and my mother, I believe, has not been twice in her life to Madame Danglars'."

"Please, Count," Morcerf said. "I beg you, don't use that word in anticipation."

"Really, and without exaggerating, is the countess so strongly opposed to the match?"

"What you say emboldens me to be frank with you," said the count. "Monsieur Danglars is my banker and Monsieur de Villefort has been showering me with attention in gratitude for a service which a fortunate chance allowed me to perform for him. Behind all this I can anticipate an avalanche of dinners and balls. Well, to avoid all this ostentation and, so to speak, to recapture the advantage, I thought I might invite Monsieur and Madame Danglars, together with Monsieur and Madame de Villefort, to my country house in Auteuil. If I invite you to this dinner, with the Count and Countess de Morcerf, won't it seem rather like a sort of matrimonial gathering, or, at least, might not the Countess de Morcerf see things in that way, especially if Baron Danglars does me the honour of bringing his daughter? So your mother might shun me, which I certainly don't want; on the contrary -- and I hope you'll tell her so at every opportunity -- I want her to think well of me."

"My dear Count," said Morcerf, "thank you for speaking to me so frankly. I accept your suggested non-invitation. You say that you want my mother to think well of you, and she already does."

"I'm sure of it. When you left us the other day, we spoke about you for an hour. But, to get back to what we were saying, if my mother could know that you were concerned for her -- and I shall tell her about it -- I am sure that she would be very grateful to you. It is true that, for his part, my father would be furious."

"You think so?" Monte Cristo asked, with interest.

The count laughed. "Well," he told Morcerf, "you have been warned. But I think it is not only your father who would be furious. Monsieur and Madame Danglars would consider me a very ill-mannered person. They know that you and I are friends, and even that you are my oldest acquaintance in Paris -- and they won't see you at my house. They will ask why I didn't invite you. At least think some prior engagement that will be more or less plausible, and write a little note informing me of it. You know: with bankers, nothing is valid unless it is in writing."

"I shall do better than that, Count," said Albert. "My mother wants to take the sea air. What day is your dinner?"

"It is Tuesday today. Very well, we'll leave tomorrow evening and, the day after, we'll be in Le Tréport. Count, do you know how charming it is of you to put people at their ease in this way?"

"No! You imagine me to be something more than I am. I just want to please you, that's all."

"When did you send out your invitations?"

"Today."

"Saturday."

"Are you crazy? What about Monsieur Debray, who has just seen you here?"

"Oh! You're right!"

"On the contrary, I saw and invited you here, and you quite simply replied that you could not be my guest, because you were leaving for Le Tréport."

"Fine! I'll go straight round to Danglars and announce that my mother and I are leaving Paris tomorrow. I have not seen you, so I know nothing about your dinner."

"It will be difficult so soon; and I would interfere with the preparations for your departure."

"Well then, that's settled. But will you come and see my mother before tomorrow?"

"Well, do better than that. You were only a charming man, but you could be an adorable one."

"What must I do to achieve that distinction?"

"That's what I asked."

"Well, today you are free as air. Come and dine with me. We shall make an intimate little party: just you, my mother and I. You have hardly glimpsed my mother: you could see her properly. She is a very remarkable woman, and I only regret one thing, which is that there's no one like her who is twenty years younger. If that were so, there would soon be a Viscountess as well as a Countess de Morcerf, I assure you. As far as my father is concerned, he won't be there: he is on duty this evening and will be dining with the public auditor. Come along, we can talk about travel. You have seen the whole world, and you can tell us of your adventures. You can tell us about the beautiful Greek who was with you the other evening at the opera, whom you call your slave and treat like a princess. We can talk Italian or Spanish. Come on, accept. My mother will thank you."

"What must you do?"

Baptistin came in and stood, waiting, at the door. "I was not warned of your visit, was I?"

"I shall prove it," said the count; and he rang the bell.

"A thousand thanks," said the count. "Your invitation is most gracious and I deeply regret not being able to accept. I am not as free as you think and, on the contrary, I have a very important appointment."

"Huh!" said Morcerf. "This is the second time you have refused to dine with my mother. There is some prejudice here, Count."

"Dammit! You're such an extraordinary man that I can't be certain of that."

"Ah, be careful! A moment ago you taught me how one discharges an unpleasant responsibility where dinners are concerned. I need proof. I am fortunately not a banker like Monsieur Danglars, but I warn you that I am as hard to convince as he is."

Monte Cristo shuddered. "Please don't think such a thing," he said. "In any case, here is my proof."

"That, I must admit, is probable."

"Well, at the very least, I could not guess that you would invite me to dinner, could I?"

"Oh, Monsieur le Comte…" said Albert.

"To have Monsieur le Comte's door closed when five o'clock struck."

"No, no. I am quite determined to get rid of this mysterious reputation that you have given me, my dear Viscount. It is too hard to have to play Manfred the whole time. I want to live in a house of glass. Then… Carry on, Baptistin."

"Well, listen… Baptistin, what did I tell you this morning when I called you into my study?"

"Then?"

"Do you hear: Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, a gentleman from the oldest noble family in Italy, for whom Dante acted as d'Hozier -- I don't know if you remember: in the tenth canto of the Inferno. In addition, his son, a charming young man of about your age, Viscount, with the same title as you, who is making his debut in Parisian society with his father's millions. This evening, the major will be bringing me his son Andrea, the contino, as we call him in Italy. He is entrusting him to me. I shall advance him, if he has any merit; and you will help me, won't you?"

"Only to admit Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti and his son."

"Of course. So is this Major Cavalcanti an old friend of yours?" Albert asked.

"Not at all. He's a worthy aristocrat, very polite, very unassuming and very discreet, as there are many in Italy -- descendants of old families who have descended a very long way. I have seen him several times, in Florence, or in Bologna, or in Lucca, and he told me he was coming here. Acquaintances made on journeys are demanding. They require of you, in any place whatsoever, the same friendship that you showed them once, by chance; as if a civilized man, who can pass an hour with anyone, did not always have some reservations! The good Major Cavalcanti wants to revisit Paris, which he has only seen once, during the empire, when he passed through on his way to catch a cold in Moscow. I shall give him a good dinner, he will leave me his son. I shall promise to look after the boy, then I'll let him commit whatever folly he wishes and we shall be quits."

"Perfectly so!" said Albert. "I can see that you are a fine tutor. Farewell, then, we shall return on Sunday. Oh, by the way, I have heard from Franz."

"So, he has changed his opinion of me, your friend Franz?"

"Why?"

"That's it! By heaven, I like him! Is there not also some marriage planned for him?"

"The one who was so disgracefully assassinated in 1815?"

"What a delightful young man!" said Monte Cristo. "I felt a liking for him the first evening I met him, looking for a supper, when he was good enough to accept mine. He is, I believe, the son of General d'Epinay?"

"Yes."

"Did you laugh?"

"I think so. However, he misses you. He says that you were the sunshine of Rome and without you the skies are grey. I think he may even have said that it's raining there."

"Yes, he is to marry Mademoiselle de Villefort."

"As true as that I am to marry Mademoiselle Danglars," Albert said with a laugh.

"Really!" Monte Cristo said. "Is he still enjoying Italy?"

"By the Bonapartists."

"Precisely."

"Because I think there is as much enthusiasm for that marriage as there is from here for the match between Mademoiselle Danglars and me. But, honestly, my dear Count, we are speaking about women as women speak about men. That's unforgivable!" And Albert got up.

"Is that true?"

"On the contrary, he insists on thinking you a highly fantastic creature, that's why he misses you."

"Are you leaving?"

"Agreed, Vicomte."

"Wait, that's not all. Convey my compliments to your discreet Luccan, Signor Cavalcanti dei Cavalcanti; and if by chance he wants to settle his son, find him a woman who is very rich and very noble, at least on her mother's side, and a baroness on her father's. I'll willingly help."

"What a question! I have been boring you for the past two hours, and you are kind enough to ask if I'm leaving! Really, Count, you are the most civil man on earth! And your servants, how well trained they are! Above all, Monsieur Baptistin! I have never been able to find one like that. Mine always seem to model themselves on the ones in the Théâtre Français who, just because they have only one word to say, always come and say it in front of the footlights. So, if you ever want to get rid of Monsieur Baptistin, please give me first refusal."

"Well, really, things in this world are uncertain."

"Dear, oh dear!" the count replied. "Are things really that bad? You can never tell."

"Yes."

"Oh, Count," Morcerf cried. "What a favour you would do me and how I would love you a hundred times more if, thanks to you, I were to remain a bachelor, if only for ten years."

Bertuccio shuddered slightly. "Very well, Monsieur," he said. "I need you," the count went on, "to get everything ready. The house is very beautiful, or might be so."

"I shall do everything I can to please Monsieur le Comte. However, I should be easier in my mind if Monsieur le Comte will tell me what he intends by this dinner."

Bertuccio bowed.

"I don't know yet, and you have no reason to know either. Lucullus dines with Lucullus, that's all."

"And don't touch the garden. But do what you like in the courtyard, and so on. I shall even be glad if it is unrecognizable."

"But Your Excellency might tell me who is to be invited!"

"So, change it all, except for one thing: the bedroom with the red damask. That must be left exactly as it is."

"Monsieur Bertuccio," the count said. "You know that on Saturday I am having guests at my house in Auteuil."

Bertuccio bowed and went out.

"Really, my dear Monsieur Bertuccio," the count said, "I find that since we have been in Paris you are nervous and seem out of place. Don't you know me by now?"

"A lot of changes will have to be made to achieve that, Monsieur le Comte; all the materials are worn."

"Nothing is impossible," Monte Cristo replied gravely. And, having said goodbye to Albert, he came back inside and rang three times. Bertuccio appeared.