Monte-Cristo cast one rapid and curious glance round this sanctum; it was the first time he had ever seen Mademoiselle d'Armilly, of whom he had heard much.
"Well!" said the banker to his daughter, "are we then all to be excluded?"
He then led the young man into the study, and, either by chance or manœuvre, the door was partially closed after Andrea, so that from the place where they sat neither the count nor the baroness could see anything; but as the banker had accompanied Andrea, Madame Danglars appeared to take no notice of it.
The count soon heard Andrea's voice, singing a Corsican song, accompanied by the piano. While the count smiled at hearing this song, which made him lose sight of Andrea in the recollection of Benedetto, Madame Danglars was boasting to Monte-Cristo of her husband's strength of mind, who that very morning had lost three or four hundred thousand francs by a failure at Milan. The praise was well deserved, for had not the count heard it from the baroness, or by one of those means by which he knew everything, the baron's countenance would not have led him to suspect it.
"Hem!" thought Monte-Cristo, "he begins to conceal his losses; a month since he boasted of them."
Then aloud,―"Oh! madame, M. Danglars is so skillful, he will soon regain at the Bourse what he loses elsewhere."
"I see you are maintaining an erroneous idea, as well as many more," said Madame Danglars.
"What is it?" said Monte-Cristo.
"That M. Danglars speculates, whereas he never does so."
"Truly, madame, I recollect M. Debray told meapropos, what has become of him? I have seen nothing of him the last three or four days."
"Nor I," said Madame Danglars; "but you began a sentence, sir, and did not finish."
"Which?"
"M. Debray had told you"
"Truly, he told me it was you who sacrificed to the demon of speculation."
"I was once very fond of it, but I am not so now."
"Then you are wrong, madame. Fortune is precarious; and if I were a woman, and fate had made me a banker's wife, whatever might be my confidence in my husband's good fortune, still, in speculation, you know, there is great risk. Well! I would secure for myself a fortune independent of him, even if I acquired it by placing my interest in hands unknown to him." Madame Danglars blushed, in spite of all her efforts.
