"Calumnies, did you say, sir?" cried Morcerf , turning livid with rage. "Does any one dare to slander me?"
"M. le Comte, I told you that I considered it best to avoid all explanation."
"Then, sir, I am patiently to submit to your refusal?"
"Painful for me above all; yes, more painful to me than to you, for I had reckoned on the honor of your alliance, and the breaking off of a marriage-contract always injures the lady more than the gentleman."
"Enough, sir," said Morcerf, "we will speak no more on the subject."
And clenching his gloves with passion, he left the apartment. Danglars remarked that during the whole conversation Morcerf had never once dared to ask if it was on his own, Morcerf's, account that Danglars recalled his word.
That evening there was a long conference between several friends, and Cavalcanti, who had remained in the drawing-room with the ladies, was the last to leave the house of the banker.
The next morning, directly he awoke, Danglars asked for the newspapers; they were brought to him; he laid aside three or four, and at least fixed on l' Impartial: it was the paper of which Beauchamp was the chief editor. He hastily tore off the cover, opened the journal with nervous precipitation, passed contemptuously over the city column, and arriving at the miscellaneous intelligence, stopped, with a malicious smile, at a paragraph headed:
Correspondence from Janina.
"Very good!" observed Danglars, after having read the paragraph, "here is a little article on Colonel Fernand, which, if I am not mistaken, will render the explanation which the Count de Morcerf required of me perfectly unnecessary."
At the same moment, that is, at nine o'clock in the morning, Albert de Morcerf, dressed in a black coat buttoned up to his chin, was walking with a quick step to Monte-Cristo's house in the Champs Elysées. When he presented himself at the gate the porter informed him that the count had gone out about half an hour previously.
"Did he take Baptistin with him?"
"No, M. le Vicomte."
"Call him then; I wish to speak to him."
The concierge went to seek the valet-de-chambre, and returned with him in an instant.
"My good friend," said Albert, "I beg pardon for my intrusion; but I was anxious to know from you if your master was really out."
