“I hope you do not doubt it.”
“Go, then, into the drawing-room, my young friend, where you will find your father awaiting you.”
Andrea made a low bow to the count, and entered the adjoining room. Monte Cristo watched him till he disappeared, and then touched a spring in a panel made to look like a picture, which, in sliding partly from the frame, discovered to view a small opening, so cleverly contrived that it revealed all that was passing in the drawing-room now occupied by Cavalcanti and Andrea. The young man closed the door behind him, and advanced towards the major, who had risen when he heard steps approaching him.
“Ah, my dear father!” said Andrea in a loud voice, in order that the count might hear him in the next room, “is it really you?”
“How do you do, my dear son?” said the major gravely.
“After so many years of painful separation,” said Andrea, in the same tone of voice, and glancing towards the door, “what a happiness it is to meet again!”
“Indeed it is, after so long a separation.”
“Will you not embrace me, sir?” said Andrea.
“If you wish it, my son,” said the major; and the two men embraced each other after the fashion of actors on the stage; that is to say, each rested his head on the other’s shoulder.
“Then we are once more reunited?” said Andrea.
“Once more,” replied the major.
“Never more to be separated?”
“Why, as to that—I think, my dear son, you must be by this time so accustomed to France as to look upon it almost as a second country.”