study, where you very willingly
presented yourself yesterday to ask for the thousand francs I give you
monthly for pocket-money, you must know, my dear young lady, that many
things may be learned, useful even to a girl who will not marry.
There one may learn, for instance, what, out of regard to your nervous
susceptibility, I will inform you of in the drawing-room, namely, that
the credit of a banker is his physical and moral life; that credit
sustains him as breath animates the body; and M. de Monte Cristo once
gave me a lecture on that subject, which I have never forgotten. There
we may learn that as credit sinks, the body becomes a corpse, and this
is what must happen very soon to the banker who is proud to own so good
a logician as you for his daughter." But Eugenie, instead of stooping,
drew herself up under the blow. "Ruined?" said she.

"Exactly, my daughter; that is precisely what I mean," said Danglars,
almost digging his nails into his breast, while he preserved on
his harsh features the smile of the heartless though clever man;
"ruined--yes, that is it."

"Ah!" said Eugenie.

"Yes, ruined! Now it is revealed, this secret so full of horror, as
the tragic poet says. Now, my daughter, learn from my lips how you may
alleviate this misfortune, so far as it will affect you."

"Oh," cried Eugenie, "you are a bad physiognomist, if you imagine
I deplore on my own account the catastrophe of which you warn me. I
ruined? and what will that signify to me? Have I not my talent left? Can
I not, like Pasta, Malibran, Grisi, acquire for myself what you would
never have given me, whatever might have been your fortune, a hundred
or a hundred and fifty thousand livres per annum, for which I shall be
indebted to no one but myself; and which, instead of being given as
you gave me those poor twelve thousand francs, with sour looks and
reproaches for my prodigality, will be accompanied with acclamations,
with bravos, and with flowers? And if I do not possess that talent,
which your smiles prove to me you doubt, should I not still have that
ardent love of independence, which will be a substitute for wealth, and
which in my mind supersedes even the instinct of self-preservation?
No, I grieve not on my own account, I shall always find a resource; my
books, my pencils, my piano, all the things which cost but little, and
which I shall be able to procure, will remain my own.

"Do you think that I sorrow for Madame Danglars? Undeceiv