"Hush! hush!" cried Marrast; "he is entering now!"
"He pauses and looks around him!" said Louis Blanc.
"He looks for us; I will go to him!" remarked Flocon.
"He looks for his wife," replied Louis Blanc. "There, he catches her eye. See how eagerly she flies to him!"
"That is the finest pair in Paris," remarked the journalist.
"And the most devoted," added Ledru Rollin. "They have been man and wife for some time, it is said, and any one would take them for lovers at this moment."
"Have they children?" asked Flocon.
"No; but M. Dantès has by a former wife a son and daughter, who rival in good looks the celebrated children of our friend Victor Hugo," returned Louis Blanc.
"I met Arago, Lamartine, Sue, Châteaubriand and some other celebrities at his mansion in the Rue du Helder one night, recently," continued Marrast, "and I thought I never saw a house arranged with such perfect taste. The salons, library, picture-gallery, cabinet of natural history, conservatory, and laboratory were superb--everything, in short, was exquisite."
"And then one is always sure to meet at Madame Dantès' soirées," added Louis Blanc, "exactly the persons who, of all others, he wishes to see, and whom he would meet nowhere else, poets, painters, authors, orators, statesmen and artists of every description--in fine, every man or woman, whether native or foreigner, distinguished for anything, is certain to be met with at M. Dantès' house."
"I once met there," said Flocon, "Rachel, the actress, and Van Amburgh, the lion-king."
"M. Dantès is a perfect Mæcenas in encouraging merit, as every one knows," remarked Marrast; "and he manifests especial solicitude to show that he appreciates worth more highly than wealth--genius than station. Poverty and ability are sure recommendations to him."
"Madame Dantès is, I am told, as devoted to the good cause as her husband," remarked Flocon.
"She is a second Madame Roland!" exclaimed Louis Blanc. "France will owe much to such women as she and her friend Madame Dudevant!"
"She differs greatly from Madame George Sand in some respects, I fancy," said Marrast; "but, if she at all rivals that wonderful woman in devotedness to the cause of human rights, whether of her own sex or ours, she deserves well of France. In her charities, it is notorious, she has no rival. Half the mendicants of the capital bless her name, and she is at the head of a dozen associations and enterprises for the amelioration of the condition of the destitute, suffering and abandoned of her sex."
"Upon my word, Messieurs," cried Ledru Rollin, "your praises of M. Dantès and Madame, his beautiful wife, are perfectly enthusiastic--so much so, that, in your zeal, you utterly forgot another matter quite as momentous. I am so unfortunate as to know M. Dantès only as one of the great pillars of our noble cause, and a man who, for nearly six years, has proven himself an apostle of man's rights, and ready, if need be, to become a martyr! That's enough for me to know of him!"