Part 16 (2/2)
said Debray. ”Three months after her settlement at Ma.r.s.eilles, in a small house in the Allees de Meillan, said to be her own by maternal inheritance, a letter came to her from Thomson and French, of Rome, stating that there was a deposit in their house, to the credit of the estate of the late Count, of the enormous sum of two millions of francs, subject to her sole control and order, as the Count's only heir, in the absence of his son.”
”Two millions of francs!” cried the two young men in a breath.
”Even so, Messieurs,” said Debray. ”The story does sound rather oriental; but I have reason to know that it is entirely true, for I made diligent inquiry about it when last at Ma.r.s.eilles.”
”And what took you to Ma.r.s.eilles, Lucien?” asked the Count significantly.
”The Ministry,” replied Debray, with evident confusion, coloring deeply.
”But why does not the Countess marry again?” asked Chateau-Renaud, surveying her faultless form and face through his gla.s.s. ”In the prime of life, rich, and, despite her past troubles, most exquisitely beautiful, it is strange she don't make herself and some one else happy!”
”Especially as no one could ever accuse her of having very desperately loved her dear first husband,” added the journalist. ”Why don't she marry, Lucien?”
”How the devil should I know!” replied the Secretary in great confusion.
”You don't suppose I ever asked her the question, do you?”
”Upon my word,” exclaimed the Count, laughing, ”I shall begin to think you have, if you take it so warmly. But, hist! the bell! The curtain rises. We mustn't lose the third act of Donizetti's chef d'oeuvre, with such a Lucrezia, for any woman living.”
But it was very evident that much of the magnificent performance of the debutante and her companion, in the thrilling scene between the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara and the young Captain Gennaro, was lost to the Secretary.
”Do you observe, Beauchamp, how strangely fascinated with the new cantatrice seems the young officer of the Spahis who accompanies the Countess?” he whispered. ”Do but look. He sits like one transfixed.”
”And the Countess seems transfixed also, though not by the same object,”
was the reply. ”How excessively pale, yet how beautiful she is! That plain black dress, without ornament or jewel, and her raven hair, parted simply on her forehead, enhance her voluptuous charms infinitely more than could the most gorgeous costume. Heavens! what a happy man will he be who can call her his!”
”Amen!” said Debray, and the word seemed to rise from the very depths of his heart. ”But she will never marry. Some early disappointment, even before her union with Morcerf, has withered her heart, and the terrible divorce which parted her from him, although she never loved him, will keep her single forever. Her first and only love is either dead or--worse--married to another.”
”See, see, Lucien!” cried Beauchamp, hurriedly; ”at whom does she gaze so intently, and yet so sadly? It cannot be Lamartine, for there sits his lovely young English wife at his side; nor can it be old Arago, nor young Le Verrier; and yet some one in that box it surely is.”
”M. Dantes?” cried Debray.
”Impossible! That man seems hardly conscious that there are such beings as women. His whole soul is in affairs of state.”
”His whole soul seems somewhere else just at present,” exclaimed the Secretary, bitterly. ”Look!”
”How dreadfully pale he is!” said Beauchamp; ”and yet his eyes fairly blaze. Is it the Countess he gazes at?”
”Is it M. Dantes she gazes at?”
At that moment, amid the wild farewell of the mother to her son, upon the stage, the curtain came down, and at the same instant, M. Dantes hastily pressed his white handkerchief to his lips, and, leaning on the arms of Lamartine and Arago, hastily left the box.
”Ha! the Countess faints!” cried Debray, as the door closed on M.
Dantes. ”Do they know each other, then?”
CHAPTER XIII.
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