The Count of Monte Cristo

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your control."

"Ma foi, spread that idea," replied the Count of Monte Cristo, putting
his foot on the velvet-lined steps of his splendid carriage, "and that
will be worth something to me among the ladies." As he spoke, he sprang
into the vehicle, the door was closed, but not so rapidly that Monte
Cristo failed to perceive the almost imperceptible movement which
stirred the curtains of the apartment in which he had left Madame de
Morcerf. When Albert returned to his mother, he found her in the boudoir
reclining in a large velvet arm-chair, the whole room so obscure that
only the shining spangle, fastened here and there to the drapery, and
the angles of the gilded frames of the pictures, showed with some
degree of brightness in the gloom. Albert could not see the face of the
countess, as it was covered with a thin veil she had put on her head,
and which fell over her features in misty folds, but it seemed to him as
though her voice had altered. He could distinguish amid the perfumes of
the roses and heliotropes in the flower-stands, the sharp and fragrant