this interchange of presents, which
ought to have cemented our friendship, or whether he did not recollect
me, he sought to take me, but, on the contrary, it was I who captured
him and a dozen of his band. I might have handed him over to Roman
justice, which is somewhat expeditious, and which would have been
particularly so with him; but I did nothing of the sort--I suffered him
and his band to depart."

"With the condition that they should sin no more," said Beauchamp,
laughing. "I see they kept their promise."

"No, monsieur," returned Monte Cristo "upon the simple condition that
they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to
say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and
your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which
does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies
itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place
in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality towards them, it is society
and my neighbor who are indebted to me."

"Bravo," cried Chateau-Renaud; "you are the first man I ever met
sufficiently courageous to preach egotism. Bravo, count, bravo!"

"It is frank, at least," said Morrel. "But I am sure that the count does
not regret having once deviated from the principles he has so boldly
avowed."

"How have I deviated from those principles, monsieur?" asked Monte
Cristo, who could not help looking at Morrel with so much intensity,
that two or three times the young man had been unable to sustain that
clear and piercing glance.

"Why, it seems to me," replied Morrel, "that in delivering M. de
Morcerf, whom you did not know, you did good to your neighbor and to
society."

"Of which he is the brightest ornament," said Beauchamp, drinking off a
glass of champagne.

"My dear count," cried Morcerf, "you are at fault--you, one of the most
formidable logicians I know--and you must see it clearly proved that
instead of being an egotist, you are a philanthropist. Ah, you call
yourself Oriental, a Levantine, Maltese, Indian, Chinese; your family
name is Monte Cristo; Sinbad the Sailor is your baptismal appellation,
and yet the first day you set foot in Paris you instinctively display
the greatest virtue, or rather the chief defect, of us eccentric
Parisians,--that is, you assume the vices you have not, and conceal the
virtues you possess."

"My dear vicomte," returned Monte Cristo, "I do not see, in al