appoint a meeting, when
the contract is signed, for the next or the following day; then they
exchange the two portions, for which they each give a receipt; then,
when the marriage is celebrated, they place the amount at your disposal
as the chief member of the alliance."

"Because," said Andrea, with a certain ill-concealed uneasiness, "I
thought I heard my father-in-law say that he intended embarking our
property in that famous railway affair of which you spoke just now."

"Well," replied Monte Cristo, "it will be the way, everybody says, of
trebling your fortune in twelve months. Baron Danglars is a good father,
and knows how to calculate."

"In that case," said Andrea, "everything is all right, excepting your
refusal, which quite grieves me."

"You must attribute it only to natural scruples under similar
circumstances."

"Well," said Andrea, "let it be as you wish. This evening, then, at nine
o'clock."

"Adieu till then." Notwithstanding a slight resistance on the part of
Monte Cristo, whose lips turned pale, but who preserved his ceremonious
smile, Andrea seized the count's hand, pressed it, jumped into his
phaeton, and disappeared.

The four or five remaining hours before nine o'clock arrived, Andrea
employed in riding, paying visits,--designed to induce those of whom
he had spoken to appear at the banker's in their gayest
equipages,--dazzling them by promises of shares in schemes which have
since turned every brain, and in which Danglars was just taking the
initiative. In fact, at half-past eight in the evening the grand salon,
the gallery adjoining, and the three other drawing-rooms on the same
floor, were filled with a perfumed crowd, who sympathized but little
in the event, but who all participated in that love of being present
wherever there is anything fresh to be seen. An Academician would say
that the entertainments of the fashionable world are collections of
flowers which attract inconstant butterflies, famished bees, and buzzing
drones.

No one could deny that the rooms were splendidly illuminated; the light
streamed forth on the gilt mouldings and the silk hangings; and all the
bad taste of decorations, which had only their richness to boast of,
shone in its splendor. Mademoiselle Eugenie was dressed with elegant
simplicity in a figured white silk dress, and a white rose half
concealed in her jet black hair was her only ornament, unaccompanied
by a single jewel. Her eyes, however, betrayed tha