"But what?" asked the groom.
"His excellency does not receive visitors to-day."
"Then take my master's card. M. le Baron Danglars! Give the card to the count, and say that, although in haste to attend the Chamber, my master came out of his way to have the honor of calling upon him."
"I never speak to his excellency," replied the concierge; "the valet-de-chambre will carry your message." The groom returned to the carriage.
"Well?" asked Danglars.
The man, somewhat crestfallen by the rebuke he had received, detailed to his master all that had passed between himself and the concierge.
"Bless me!" murmured M. le Baron Danglars, "this must surely be a prince instead of a count by their styling him 'excellency,' and only venturing to address him by the medium of his valet-de-chambre. How ever, it does not signify; he has a letter of credit on me, so I must see him when he requires his money."
Then, throwing himself back in his carriage, Danglars called out to his coachman, in a voice that might be heard across the road, "To the Chambre des Deputes."
Apprised in time of the visit paid him, Monte-Cristo had, from behind the blinds of his pavilion, as minutely observed the baron by means of an excellent lorgnette as Danglars himself had scrutinized the house, garden, and servants.
"That fellow has a decidedly bad countenance," said the count in a tone of disgust, as he shut up his glass into its ivory case. "How comes it that all do not recognize the snake in that flat forehead, the vulture in that bulging skull, and the buzzard in that sharp beak?"
"Ali!" cried he, striking at the same time on the brazen gong. Ali appeared.
"Summon Bertuccio!" said the count. Almost immediately Bertuccio entered the apartment.
"Did your excellency desire to see me?" inquired he.
"I did" replied the count. "You no doubt observed the horses standing a few minutes since at the door?"
"Certainly, your excellency; I noticed them for their remarkable beauty."
"Then how comes it," said Monte-Cristo, with a frown, "that when I desired you to purchase for me the finest pair of horses to be found in Paris, you permitted so splendid a couple as those to be in the possession of any one but myself?"
