“Wretch!” exclaimed Haydée, her eyes flashing with rage; “he sold my father to the Turks, and the fortune he boasts of was the price of his treachery! Did not you know that, my dear lord?”
“Something of this I heard in Epirus,” said Monte Cristo; “but the particulars are still unknown to me. You shall relate them to me, my child. They are, no doubt, both curious and interesting.”
“Yes, yes; but let us go. I feel as though it would kill me to remain long near that dreadful man.”
So saying, Haydée arose, and wrapping herself in her burnouse of white cashmere embroidered with pearls and coral, she hastily quitted the box at the moment when the curtain was rising upon the fourth act.
“Do you observe,” said the Countess G—— to Albert, who had returned to her side, “that man does nothing like other people; he listens most devoutly to the third act of Robert le Diable, and when the fourth begins, takes his departure.”
Chapter 54. A Flurry in Stocks
Some days after this meeting, Albert de Morcerf visited the Count of Monte Cristo at his house in the Champs-Élysées, 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 through the medium of 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 was due 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 who went to the opera with a Greek slave wearing diamonds to the amount of a million of money, had deputed those eyes, by which she was accustomed to see, to give her a faithful account of the mode of life of this incomprehensible person. But the count did not appear to suspect that there could be the slightest connection between Lucien’s visit and the curiosity of the baroness.
“You are in constant communication with the Baron Danglars?” the count inquired of Albert de Morcerf.
“Yes, count, you know what I told you?”