"But, at least, you will be there?"
"Will all Paris be there?"
"Oh, certainly."
"Well, like all Paris, I shall be there too," said the count.
"And will you sign the contract?"
"I see no objection to that; my scruples do not go thus far."
"Well, since you will grant me no more, I must be content with what you give me. But one word more, count."
"What is it?"
"Advice."
"Be careful; advice is worse than a service."
"Oh, you can give me this without compromising yourself."
"Tell me what it is."
"Is my wife's fortune five hundred thousand livres?"
"That is the sum M. Danglars himself announced."
"Must I receive it, or leave it in the hands of the notary?"
"This is the way such affairs are generally arranged when it is wished to do them stylishly: Your two solicitors appoint a meeting, when the contract is signed, for the next or the following day; then they exchange the two portions, for which they each give a receipt; then, when the marriage is celebrated, they place the amount at your disposal as the chief member of the alliance."
"Because," said Andrea, with a certain ill-concealed uneasiness, "I thought I heard my father-in-law say that he intended embarking our property in that famous railway affair of which you spoke just now."
"Well," replied Monte Cristo, "it will be the way, everybody says, of trebling your fortune in twelve months. Baron Danglars is a good father, and knows how to calculate."
"In that case," said Andrea, "everything is all right, excepting your refusal, which quite grieves me."
"You must attribute it only to natural scruples under similar circumstances."
"Well," said Andrea, "let it be as you wish. This evening, then, at nine o'clock."
"Adieu till then." Notwithstanding a slight resistance on the part of Monte Cristo, whose lips turned pale, but who preserved his ceremonious smile, Andrea seized the count's hand, pressed it, jumped into his phaeton, and disappeared.
The four or five remaining hours before nine o'clock arrived, Andrea employed in riding, paying visits,--designed to induce those of whom he had spoken to appear at the banker's in their gayest equipages,--dazzling them by promises of shares in schemes which have since turned every brain, and in which Danglars was just taking the initiative. In fact, at half-past eight in the evening the grand salon, the gallery adjoining, and the three other drawing-rooms on the same floor, were filled with a perfumed crowd, who sympathized but little in the event, but who all participated in that love of being present wherever there is anything fresh to be seen. An Academician would say that the entertainments of the fashionable world are collections of flowers which attract inconstant butterflies, famished bees, and buzzing drones.