een
seen on her countenance if she had not kept her color, she ascended the
steps, saying to Morrel, "Sir, if you were a friend of mine, I should
ask you if you would sell your horse."

Morrel smiled with an expression very like a grimace, and then turned
round to Monte Cristo, as if to ask him to extricate him from his
embarrassment. The count understood him. "Ah, madame," he said, "why did
you not make that request of me?"

"With you, sir," replied the baroness, "one can wish for nothing, one is
so sure to obtain it. If it were so with M. Morrel"--

"Unfortunately," replied the count, "I am witness that M. Morrel cannot
give up his horse, his honor being engaged in keeping it."

"How so?"

"He laid a wager he would tame Medeah in the space of six months. You
understand now that if he were to get rid of the animal before the
time named, he would not only lose his bet, but people would say he was
afraid; and a brave captain of Spahis cannot risk this, even to
gratify a pretty woman, which is, in my opinion, one of the most sacred
obligations in the world."

"You see my position, madame," said Morrel, bestowing a grateful smile
on Monte Cristo.

"It seems to me," said Danglars, in his coarse tone, ill-concealed by a
forced smile, "that you have already got horses enough." Madame Danglars
seldom allowed remarks of this kind to pass unnoticed, but, to the
surprise of the young people, she pretended not to hear it, and said
nothing. Monte Cristo smiled at her unusual humility, and showed her two
immense porcelain jars, over which wound marine plants, of a size and
delicacy that nature alone could produce. The baroness was astonished.
"Why," said she, "you could plant one of the chestnut-trees in the
Tuileries inside! How can such enormous jars have been manufactured?"

"Ah, madame," replied Monte Cristo, "you must not ask of us, the
manufacturers of fine porcelain, such a question. It is the work of
another age, constructed by the genii of earth and water."

"How so?--at what period can that have been?"

"I do not know; I have only heard that an emperor of China had an
oven built expressly, and that in this oven twelve jars like this were
successively baked. Two broke, from the heat of the fire; the other ten
were sunk three hundred fathoms deep into the sea. The sea, knowing
what was required of her, threw over them her weeds, encircled them with
coral, and encrusted them with shells; the whole was cemented by