"Not so bad," said Beauchamp; "still, I assure you, he passed very well with many people; I saw him at the ministers' houses."
"Ah, yes!" said Château-Renaud. "The idea of thinking ministers understand anything about princes!"
"There is something in what you have just said," said Beauchamp, laughing. "The phrase is brief and striking; may I use it in my report?"
"But," said Debray to Beauchamp, "if I spoke to the president, you must have spoken with the procureur du roi."
"It was an impossibility; for the last week M. de Villefort has secluded himself. It is natural enough; this strange chain of domestic afflictions, followed by the no less strange death of his daughter———"
"Strange! What do you mean, Beauchamp?"
"Oh, yes! Do you play the ignorant, under the pretense that all this took place at the minister's?" said Beauchamp, placing his eye-glass in his eye, where he tried to make it remain.
"My dear sir," said Château-Renaud, "allow me to tell you that you do not understand that manœvre with the eye-glass half so well as Debray. Give him a lesson, Debray."
"Stay," said Beauchamp, "surely I am not deceived."
"What is it?"
"It is she!"
"Whom do you mean?"
"They said she had left."
"Mademoiselle Eugénie? "said Château-Renaud; "has she returned?"
"No! but her mother."
"Madame Danglars? Nonsense! Impossible!" said Château-Renaud; "only ten days after the flight of her daughter, and three days from the bankruptcy of her husband?"
Debray colored slightly, and followed with his eyes the direction of Beauchamp's glance.
"Come," he said, "it is only a veiled lady, some foreign princess; perhaps the mother of Cavalcanti. But you were just speaking on a very interesting topic, Beauchamp."
"I?"
"Yes; you were telling us about the extraordinary death of Valentine."
"Ah, yes, so I was. But how is it that Madame de Villefort is not here?"
"Poor, dear woman!" said Debray, "she is no doubt occupied in distilling balm for the hospitals, or in making cosmetics for herself or friends. Do you know she spends two or three thousand crowns a year
