“Certainly, your excellency; I saw her put to sea the same evening we quitted Marseilles.”
“And the yacht.”
“Was ordered to remain at Martigues.”
“’Tis well. I wish you to write from time to time to the captains in charge of the two vessels so as to keep them on the alert.”
“And the steamboat?”
“She is at Châlons?”
“Yes.”
“The same orders for her as for the two sailing vessels.”
“Very good.”
“When you have purchased the estate I desire, I want constant relays of horses at ten leagues apart along the northern and southern road.”
“Your excellency may depend upon me.”
The Count made a gesture of satisfaction, descended the terrace steps, and sprang into his carriage, which was whirled along swiftly to the banker’s house.
Danglars was engaged at that moment, presiding over a railroad committee. But the meeting was nearly concluded when the name of his visitor was announced. As the count’s title sounded on his ear he rose, and addressing his colleagues, who were members of one or the other Chamber, he said:
“Gentlemen, pardon me for leaving you so abruptly; but a most ridiculous circumstance has occurred, which is this,—Thomson & French, the Roman bankers, have sent to me a certain person calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo, and have given him an unlimited credit with me. I confess this is the drollest thing I have ever met with in the course of my extensive foreign transactions, and you may readily suppose it has greatly roused my curiosity. I took the trouble this morning to call on the pretended count—if he were a real count he wouldn’t be so rich. But, would you believe it, ‘He was not receiving.’ So the master of Monte Cristo gives himself airs befitting a great millionaire or a capricious beauty. I made inquiries, and found that the house in the Champs-Élysées is his own property, and certainly it was very decently kept up. But,” pursued Danglars with one of his sinister smiles, “an order for unlimited credit calls for something like caution on the part of the banker to whom that order is given. I am very anxious to see this man. I suspect a hoax is intended, but the instigators of it little knew whom they had to deal with. ‘They laugh best who laugh last!’”
Having delivered himself of this pompous address, uttered with a degree of energy that left the baron almost out of breath, he bowed to the assembled party and withdrew to his drawing-room, whose sumptuous furnishings of white and gold had caused a great sensation in the Chaussée d’Antin. It was to this apartment he had desired his guest to be shown, with the purpose of overwhelming him at the sight of so much luxury. He found the count standing before some copies of Albano and Fattore that had been passed off to the banker as originals; but which, mere copies as they were, seemed to feel their degradation in being brought into juxtaposition with the gaudy colors that covered the ceiling.
The count turned round as he heard the entrance of Danglars into the room. With a slight inclination of the head, Danglars signed to the count to be seated, pointing significantly to a gilded armchair, covered with white satin embroidered with gold. The count sat down.
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“I have the honor, I presume, of addressing M. de Monte Cristo.”
The count bowed.
“And I of speaking to Baron Danglars, chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and member of the Chamber of Deputies?”
Monte Cristo repeated all the titles he had read on the baron’s card.
Danglars felt the irony and compressed his lips.
“You will, I trust, excuse me, monsieur, for not calling you by your title when I first addressed you,” he said, “but you are aware that we are living under a popular form of government, and that I am myself a representative of the liberties of the people.”
“So much so,” replied Monte Cristo, “that while you call yourself baron you are not willing to call anybody else count.”
“Upon my word, monsieur,” said Danglars with affected carelessness, “I attach no sort of value to such empty distinctions; but the fact is, I was made baron, and also chevalier of the Legion of Honor, in return for services rendered, but——”
“But you have discarded your titles after the example set you by Messrs. de Montmorency and Lafayette? That was a noble example to follow, monsieur.”
“Why,” replied Danglars, “not entirely so; with the servants,—you understand.”
“I see; to your domestics you are ‘my lord,’ the journalists style you ‘monsieur,’ while your constituents call you ‘citizen.’ These are distinctions very suitable under a constitutional government. I understand perfectly.”
Again Danglars bit his lips; he saw that he was no match for Monte Cristo in an argument of this sort, and he therefore hastened to turn to subjects more congenial.
“Permit me to inform you, Count,” said he, bowing, “that I have received a letter of advice from Thomson & French, of Rome.”
“I am glad to hear it, baron,—for I must claim the privilege of addressing you after the manner of your servants. I have acquired the bad habit of calling persons by their titles from living in a country where barons are still barons by right of birth. But as regards the letter of advice, I am charmed to find that it has reached you; that will spare me the troublesome and disagreeable task of coming to you for money myself. You have received a regular letter of advice?”
“Yes,” said Danglars, “but I confess I didn’t quite comprehend its meaning.”
“Indeed?”
“And for that reason I did myself the honor of calling upon you, in order to beg for an explanation.”
“Go on, monsieur. Here I am, ready to give you any explanation you desire.”
“Why,” said Danglars, “in the letter—I believe I have it about me”—here he felt in his breast-pocket—“yes, here it is. Well, this letter gives the Count of Monte Cristo unlimited credit on our house.”
“Well, baron, what is there difficult to understand about that?”
“Merely the term unlimited—nothing else, certainly.”
“Is not that word known in France? The people who wrote are Anglo-Germans, you know.”
“Oh, as for the composition of the letter, there is nothing to be said; but as regards the competency of the document, I certainly have doubts.”