"His portrait, madame. Do you recognize it?"
"I should think so! And the other, this lady?"
"My mother who died many years ago. He adored her."
"Yes, yes, I know. She was formerly on the stage, wasn't she? I remember. We will talk it all over, if you will, and about your own life, the misfortunes which have driven you to live like this. But first of all, how came you here? And why?"
Dorothy told them how she had chanced to see the word Roborey, which her father had repeated when he was dying. Then the Count interrupted her narration.
He was a perfectly commonplace man who always did his best to invest matters with the greatest possible solemnity, in order that he might play the chief part in them, which his rank and fortune assigned to him. As a matter of form he consulted his two comrades, then, without waiting to hear their answers, he dismissed the inspector with the lack of ceremony of a grand seignior. In the same fashion he turned out Saint-Quentin and the three boys, carefully closed the two doors, bade the two women sit down, and walked up and down in front of them with his hands behind his back and an air of profound thoughtfulness.
Dorothy was quite content. She had won a victory, compelled her hosts to speak the words she wanted. The Countess held her tightly to her. Raoul appeared to be a friend. All was going well. There was, indeed, standing a little apart from them, hostile and formidable, the bearded nobleman, whose hard eyes never left her. But sure of herself, accepting the combat, full of careless daring, she refused to bend before the menace of the terrible danger which, however, might at any moment crush her.
"Mademoiselle," said the Count de Chagny with an air of great importance. "It has seemed to us, to my cousins and me, since you are the daughter of Jean d'Argonne, whose loss we so deeply deplore—it has seemed to us, I say, that we ought in our turn, to enlighten you concerning events of which he was cognizant and of which he would have informed you had he not been prevented by death ... of which he actually desired, as we know, that you should be informed."
He paused, delighted with his preamble. On occasions like this he loved to indulge in a pomposity of diction employing only the most select vocabulary, striving to observe the rules of grammar, and fearless of subjunctives. He went on:
"Mademoiselle, my father, François de Chagny, my grandfather, Dominique de Chagny, and my great-grandfather, Gaspard de Chagny, lived their lives in the sure conviction that great wealth would be ... how shall I put it? ... would be offered to them, by reason of certain unknown conditions of which each of them was confident in advance that he would be the beneficiary. And each of them took the greater joy in the fact and indulged in a hope all the more agreeable because the Revolution had ruined the house of the Counts de Chagny from the roof-tree to the basement. On what was this conviction based? Neither François, nor Dominique, nor Gaspard de Chagny ever knew. It came from vague legends which described exactly neither the nature of the riches nor the epoch at which they would appear, but all of which had this in common that they evoked the name of Roborey. And these legends could not have gone very far back since this château, which was formerly called the Château de Chagny, only received the name of Chagny-Roborey in the reign of Louis XVI. Is it this designation which brought about the excavations that were made from time to time? It is extremely probable. At all events it is a fact that at the very moment the war broke out I had formed the resolution of restoring this Château de Roborey, which had become merely a shooting-box and definitely settling down in it, for all that, and I am not ashamed to say it, my recent marriage with Madame de Chagny had enabled me to wait for these so-called riches without excessive impatience."