ted," said she. "I
escaped the Morcerf only to fall into the Cavalcanti."

"Oh, do not confound the two, Eugenie."

"Hold your tongue! The men are all infamous, and I am happy to be able
now to do more than detest them--I despise them."

"What shall we do?" asked Louise.

"What shall we do?"

"Yes."

"Why, the same we had intended doing three days since--set off."

"What?--although you are not now going to be married, you intend
still"--

"Listen, Louise. I hate this life of the fashionable world, always
ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always
wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and
independent, relying only on my own resources, and accountable only to
myself. Remain here? What for?--that they may try, a month hence,
to marry me again; and to whom?--M. Debray, perhaps, as it was once
proposed. No, Louise, no! This evening's adventure will serve for my
excuse. I did not seek one, I did not ask for one. God sends me this,
and I hail it joyfully!"

"How strong and courageous you are!" said the fair, frail girl to her
brunette companion.

"Did you not yet know me? Come, Louise, let us talk of our affairs. The
post-chaise"--

"Was happily bought three days since."

"Have you had it sent where we are to go for it?"

"Yes."

"Our passport?"

"Here it is."

And Eugenie, with her usual precision, opened a printed paper, and
read,--

"M. Leon d'Armilly, twenty years of age; profession, artist; hair black,
eyes black; travelling with his sister."

"Capital! How did you get this passport?"

"When I went to ask M. de Monte Cristo for letters to the directors of
the theatres at Rome and Naples, I expressed my fears of travelling as
a woman; he perfectly understood them, and undertook to procure for me
a man's passport, and two days after I received this, to which I have
added with my own hand, 'travelling with his sister.'"

"Well," said Eugenie cheerfully, "we have then only to pack up our
trunks; we shall start the evening of the signing of the contract,
instead of the evening of the wedding--that is all."

"But consider the matter seriously, Eugenie!"

"Oh, I am done with considering! I am tired of hearing only of market
reports, of the end of the month, of the rise and fall of Spanish funds,
of Haitian bonds. Instead of that, Louise--do you understand?--air,
liberty, melody of birds, plains of Lombardy, Venetian canals, Roman
palaces, the Bay