"Sir," said the baroness, humbly, "are you not aware that the man employed there was dismissed, that they talked of indicting him, that orders were issued to arrest him, and that this order would have been put into execution if he had not escaped their researches by a flight which proves either his madness or his culpability. It was a mistake."
"Yes, which made fools laugh, which caused the minister to have a sleepless night, which has caused the minister's secretaries to blacken several sheets of paper, but which has cost me seven hundred thousand francs."
"But, sir," said Hermine, suddenly, "if all this is, as you say, caused by M. Debray, why, instead of going direct to him, do you come and tell me of it? Why to accuse the man do you address the woman?"
"Do I know M. Debray 1 do I wish to know him? do I wish to know that he gives advice? do I wish to follow it? do I speculate? No; you do all this, not I."
"Still it seems to me that, as you profit by it"
Danglars shrugged his shoulders. "Foolish creatures, these women!" he exclaimed. "They fancy they have talent because they have man aged two or three intrigues without being the talk of Paris! But know that if you had even hidden your irregularities from your husband, which is but the A B C of the art,—for generally husbands will not see,—you would then have been but a faint imitation of most of your friends among the women of the world. But it has not been so with me,—I see, and always have seen, during the last sixteen years. You may, perhaps, have hidden a thought; but not a step, not an action, not a fault has escaped me; while you flattered yourself upon your address, and firmly believed you had deceived me. What has been the result?—that, thanks to my pretended ignorance, there are none of your friends, from M. de Villefort to M. Debray, who have not trembled before me. There is not one who has not treated me as the master of the house,—the only title I desire with respect to you; there is not one, in fact, who would have dared to speak to you of me as I have spoken to you of them this day. I will allow you to make me hateful; but I will prevent your rendering me ridiculous, and, above all, I forbid you to ruin me."
The baroness had been tolerably composed until the name of Villefort had been pronounced; but then she became pale, and, rising, as if touched by a spring, she stretched out her hands as though conjuring an apparition; she then took two or three steps toward her husband, as though to tear the secret from him, of which he was ignorant, or which he withheld from some odious calculation, as all his calculations were.
"M. de Villefort!—What do you mean?"
