The Count of Monte Cristo

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Villefort retained his place, but his marriage was put off until a more
favorable opportunity. If the emperor remained on the throne, Gerard
required a different alliance to aid his career; if Louis XVIII.
returned, the influence of M. de Saint-Meran, like his own, could
be vastly increased, and the marriage be still more suitable. The
deputy-procureur was, therefore, the first magistrate of Marseilles,
when one morning his door opened, and M. Morrel was announced.

Any one else would have hastened to receive him; but Villefort was a man
of ability, and he knew this would be a sign of weakness. He made Morrel
wait in the ante-chamber, although he had no one with him, for the
simple reason that the king's procureur always makes every one wait, and
after passing a quarter of an hour in reading the papers, he ordered M.
Morrel to be admitted.

Morrel expected Villefort would be dejected; he found him as he had
found him six weeks before, calm, firm, and full of that glacial