Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/57

 

E have seen how quietly Mademoiselle Danglars and Mademoiselle d'Armilly accomplished their transformation and flight; the fact being that every one was too much occupied in his or her own affairs to think of theirs.

We will leave the banker counting the enormous columns of his debt before the phantom of bankruptcy, and follow the baroness, who, after remaining for a moment as if crushed under the weight of the blow which had struck her, went to seek her usual adviser, Lucien Debray. The baroness had looked forward to this marriage as a means of ridding her of the guardianship which, over a girl of Eugénie's character, could not fail to be rather a troublesome undertaking; for in those tacit understandings which maintain the bond of family union the mother is only really the mistress of her daughter upon the condition of continually presenting herself to her as a model of wisdom and type of perfection. Now, Madame Danglars feared the penetration of Eugénie and the advice of Mademoiselle d'Armilly; she had frequently observed the contemptuous expression with which her daughter looked upon Debray,—an expression which seemed to imply that she understood all the mystery of her mother's amorous and pecuniary relationships with the private secretary; moreover, she saw that Eugénie detested Debray, not only because he was a cause of dissension and scandal in the paternal roof, but because she had at once classed him in that catalogue of bipeds whom Plato endeavors to withdraw from the appellation of men, and whom Diogenes designated as animals upon two legs without feathers.

Unfortunately, in this world of ours, each person views things from his own standpoint, which prevents him seeing them in the same light as others; and Madame Danglars, therefore, from her point of view, very much regretted that the marriage of Eugénie had not taken place,