but when I came to the paragraph about you, although I had done nothing else but read it over to myself all the morning (you know you had told me all about it the previous evening), I felt so happy, and yet so nervous, at the idea of speaking your name aloud, and before so many people, that I really think I should have passed it over, but for the fear that my doing so might create suspicions as to the cause of my silence; so I summoned up all my courage, and read it as firmly and as steadily as I could.”
“Dear Valentine!”
“Well, would you believe it? directly my father caught the sound of your name he turned round quite hastily, and, like a poor silly thing, I was so persuaded that everyone must be as much affected as myself by the utterance of your name, that I was not surprised to see my father start, and almost tremble; but I even thought (though that surely must have been a mistake) that M. Danglars trembled too.”
“ ‘Morrel, Morrel,’ cried my father, ‘stop a bit;’ then knitting his brows into a deep frown, he added, ‘surely this cannot be one of the Morrel family who lived at Marseilles, and gave us so much trouble from their violent Bonapartism—I mean about the year 1815.’
“ ‘Yes,’ replied M. Danglars, ‘I believe he is the son of the old shipowner.’ ”
“Indeed,” answered Maximilian; “and what did your father say then, Valentine?”
“Oh, such a dreadful thing, that I don’t dare to tell you.”
“Always tell me everything,” said Maximilian with a smile.
“ ‘Ah,’ continued my father, still frowning, ‘their idolized emperor treated these madmen as they deserved; he called them “food for