assurance than before, and said:
“You may, perhaps, be better satisfied that I should not go farther into particulars.”
A tremor of suppressed rage shook the whole frame of the count, and making a violent effort over himself, he said:
“I have a right to insist on your giving me an explanation. Is it Madame de Morcerf who has displeased you? Is it my fortune which you find insufficient? Is it because my opinions differ from yours?”
“Nothing of the kind, sir,” replied Danglars: “if such had been the case, I only should have been to blame, inasmuch as I was aware of all these things when I made the engagement. No, do not seek any longer to discover the reason. I really am quite ashamed to have been the cause of your undergoing such severe self-examination; let us drop the subject, and adopt the middle course of delay, which implies neither a rupture nor an engagement. Ma foi, there is no hurry. My daughter is only seventeen years old, and your son twenty-one. While we wait, time will be progressing, events will succeed each other; things which in the evening look dark and obscure, appear but too clearly in the light of morning, and sometimes the utterance of one word, or the lapse of a single day, will reveal the most cruel calumnies.”
“Calumnies, did you say, sir?” cried Morcerf, turning livid with rage. “Does anyone dare to slander me?”