“You are in constant communication with the Baron Danglars?” the count inquired of Albert de Morcerf.
“Yes, count, you know what I told you?”
“All remains the same, then, in that quarter?”
“It is more than ever a settled thing,” said Lucien,—and, considering that this remark was all that he was at that time called upon to make, he adjusted the glass to his eye, and biting the top of his gold headed cane, began to make the tour of the apartment, examining the arms and the pictures.
“Ah,” said Monte Cristo “I did not expect that the affair would be so promptly concluded.”
“Oh, things take their course without our assistance. While we are forgetting them, they are falling into their appointed order; and when, again, our attention is directed to them, we are surprised at the progress they have made towards the proposed end. My father and M. Danglars served together in Spain, my father in the army and M. Danglars in the commissariat department. It was there that my father, ruined by the revolution, and M. Danglars, who never had possessed any patrimony, both laid the foundations of their different fortunes.”
“Yes,” said Monte Cristo “I think M. Danglars mentioned that in a visit which I paid him; and,” continued he, casting a side-glance at Lucien, who was turning over the leaves of an album, “Mademoiselle Eugénie is pretty—I think I remember that to be her name.”
“Very pretty, or rather, very beautiful,” replied Albert, “but of that style of beauty which I do not appreciate; I am an ungrateful fellow.”