"He is a friend of papa's," said she at last. "He came out with us--"
"Is he a great friend of yours?" asked Claude.
Mimi hesitated for a moment, and then said,--
"Perhaps I am doing him injustice," said Mimi, "but I cannot help feeling as though he is in some way connected with dear papa's troubles. I do not mean to say that he is the cause of them. I merely mean that, as far as I know anything about them, it is always in such a way that he seems mixed up with them. And I don't think, either, that his face is very much in his favor, for there is something so harsh and cruel in his expression, that I always wish that papa had chosen some different kind of a person for his friend and confidant."
"O, I suppose so," said Mimi. "They have secrets together, and make, together, plans that I know nothing about."
"Do you suppose," asked Claude, "that you will ever be in any way connected with their plans?"
He put this question, which was a general one, in a very peculiar tone, which indicated some deeper meaning. It seemed as though Mimi understood him, for she threw at him a hurried and half-frightened look.
"Why?" she asked. "What makes you ask such a question as that?"
"O, I don't know," said Claude. "The thought merely entered my mind--perhaps because I dislike him, and suspect him, and am ready to imagine all kinds of evil about him."
Mimi regarded him now with a very earnest look, and said nothing for some time.
"Have you any recollection," she asked, at length, "of ever having seen his face anywhere, at any time, very long ago?"
"Not the slightest," said he. "I never saw him in all my life, or any one like him, till I saw him on the raft. But what makes you ask so strange a question?"
"I hardly know," said Mimi, "except that he seems so in papa's confidence,--and I know that papa's chief trouble arises from some affair that he had with some Montresor,--and I thought--well, I'll tell you what I thought. I thought that, as this Montresor had to leave France--that perhaps he had been followed to America, or sought after; and, as you are a member of that family, you might have seen some of those who were watching the family; and the Count do Cazeneau seemed to be one who might be connected with it. But I'm afraid I'm speaking in rather a confused way; and no wonder, for I hardly know what it is that I do really suspect."