“I did so, but he excused himself on account of Madame de Morcerf being obliged to go to Dieppe for the benefit of sea air.”
“Yes, yes,” said Danglars, laughing, “it would do her a great deal of good.”
“Why so?”
“Because it is the air she always breathed in her youth.”
Monte Cristo took no notice of this ill-natured remark.
“But still, if Albert be not so rich as Mademoiselle Danglars,” said the count, “you must allow that he has a fine name?”
“So he has; but I like mine as well.”
“Certainly; your name is popular, and does honor to the title they have adorned it with; but you are too intelligent not to know that according to a prejudice, too firmly rooted to be exterminated, a nobility which dates back five centuries is worth more than one that can only reckon twenty years.”
“And for this very reason,” said Danglars with a smile, which he tried to make sardonic, “I prefer M. Andrea Cavalcanti to M. Albert de Morcerf.”
“Still, I should not think the Morcerfs would yield to the Cavalcanti?”
“The Morcerfs!—Stay, my dear count,” said Danglars; “you are a man of the world, are you not?”
“I think so.”
“And you understand heraldry?”
“A little.”
“Well, look at my coat-of-arms, it is worth more than Morcerf’s.”
“Why so?”
“Because, though I am not a baron by birth, my real name is, at least, Danglars.”
“Well, what then?”
“While his name is not Morcerf.”
“How?—not Morcerf?”
“Not the least in the world.”
“Go on.”
“I have been made a baron, so that I actually am one; he made himself a count, so that he is not one at all.”
“Impossible!”
“Listen my dear count; M. de Morcerf has been my friend, or rather my acquaintance, during the last thirty years. You know I have made the most of my arms, though I never forgot my origin.”
“A proof of great humility or great pride,” said Monte Cristo.
“Well, when I was a clerk, Morcerf was a mere fisherman.”
“And then he was called——”
“Fernand.”
“Only Fernand?”
“Fernand Mondego.”
“You are sure?”
“Pardieu! I have bought enough fish of him to know his name.”
“Then, why did you think of giving your daughter to him?”
“Because Fernand and Danglars, being both parvenus, both having become noble, both rich, are about equal in worth, excepting that there have been certain things mentioned of him that were never said of me.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing!”
“Ah, yes; what you tell me recalls to mind something about the name of Fernand Mondego. I have heard that name in Greece.”
“In conjunction with the affairs of Ali Pasha?”
“Exactly so.”