Louise, no! This evening’s adventure will serve for my excuse. I did not seek one, I did not ask for one. God sends me this, and I hail it joyfully!”
“How strong and courageous you are!” said the fair, frail girl to her brunette companion.
“Did you not yet know me? Come, Louise, let us talk of our affairs. The post-chaise—”
“Was happily bought three days since.”
“Have you had it sent where we are to go for it?”
“Yes.”
“Our passport?”
“Here it is.”
And Eugénie, with her usual precision, opened a printed paper, and read:
“ M. Léon d’Armilly, twenty years of age; profession, artist; hair black, eyes black; travelling with his sister.”
“Capital! How did you get this passport?”
“When I went to ask M. de Monte Cristo for letters to the directors of the theatres at Rome and Naples, I expressed my fears of travelling as a woman; he perfectly understood them, and undertook to procure for me a man’s passport, and two days after I received this, to which I have added with my own hand, ‘travelling with his sister.’ ”
“Well,” said Eugénie cheerfully, “we have then only to pack up our trunks; we shall start the evening of the signing of the contract, instead of the evening of the wedding—that is all.”