“Well!” said Albert.
“I did not like to go to him without first seeing you.”
“Why?”
“Because the count is doubtless aware that I accompanied you to the meeting this morning.”
“It is probable,” said Albert.
“And since he has sent for me, it is doubtless to question me on what happened there. What must I answer?”
“The truth.”
“Then I shall say the duel did not take place?”
“You will say I apologized to the Count of Monte Cristo. Go.”
The valet bowed and retired, and Albert returned to his inventory. As he was finishing this work, the sound of horses prancing in the yard, and the wheels of a carriage shaking his window, attracted his attention. He approached the window, and saw his father get into it, and drive away. The door was scarcely closed when Albert bent his steps to his mother’s room; and, no one being there to announce him, he advanced to her bedchamber, and distressed by what he saw and guessed, stopped for one moment at the door.
As if the same idea had animated these two beings, Mercédès was doing the same in her apartments that he had just done in his. Everything was in order,—laces, dresses, jewels, linen, money, all were arranged in the drawers, and the countess was carefully collecting the keys. Albert saw all these preparations and understood them, and exclaiming, “My mother!” he threw his arms around her neck.
The artist who could have depicted the expression of these two countenances would certainly have made of them a beautiful picture. All these proofs of an energetic resolution, which Albert did not fear on his own account, alarmed him for his mother. “What are you doing?” asked he.