Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 3).djvu/108

88 and refinement itself, does not relish the idea of being allied by your marriage with one of ignoble birth; that is natural enough."

"I do not know if that is her reason," said Albert; "but one thing I do know, that if this marriage be made, it will render her quite miserable. There was to have been a meeting six weeks ago in order to talk over and settle the affair; but I had such a sudden attack of indisposition"

"Real?" interrupted the count, smiling.

"Oh, real enough, anxiety doubtless, so that they postponed the rendezvous for two months longer. There is no hurry, you know. I am not yet twenty-one, and Eugenie is only seventeen years of age; but the two months expire next week. It must be done. My dear count, you cannot imagine how my mind is harassed. How happy you are in being free!"

"Well! and why should not you be free too I What prevents you from being so?"

"Oh! it will be too great a disappointment to my father if I do not marry Mademoiselle Danglars."

"Marry her, then," said the count, with a significant shrug of the shoulders.

"Yes," replied Morcerf, "but that will plunge my mother into positive grief."

"Then do not marry her," said the count.

"Well, I shall see. I will try and think. You will give me your advice, will you not? and if possible extricate me from my unpleasant position? I think, rather than give pain to my excellent mother, I would run the risk of offending the count."

Monte-Cristo turned away; he seemed moved by this last remark.

"Ah!" said he to Debray, who had thrown himself into an easy-chair at the farthest extremity of the salon, and who held a pencil in his right hand and a note-book in his left, "what are you doing there? are you making a sketch after Poussin?"

"No, no! I am doing something of a very opposite nature to painting. I am engaged with arithmetic."

"Arithmetic!"

"Yes; I am calculating—by the way, Morcerf, that indirectly concerns you—I am calculating what the house of Danglars must have gained by the last rise in Hayti stock; from two hundred and six they have risen to four hundred and nine in three days, and the prudent banker had purchased at two hundred and six; therefore, he must have made three hundred thousand livres."

"That is not his best stroke of policy," said Morcerf; "did he not gain a million from the Spanish bonds?"