Part 45 (1/2)
”Yes”
”Which means-” murmured De Guiche
”Which means that I have heard every syllable you have said”
”Oh, Heaven! this only anting to destroy me,” stammered De Guiche; and he bent down his head, like an exhausted swiulfs hie rew pale, turned his head aside, and was silent He felt al
”I do not coentleness; ”I prefer a frankness that woundsto your opinion, M de Guiche, I am a coquette, an a worthless creature”
”Worthless,” cried the young man; ”you worthless! Oh, no; most certainly I did not say, I could not have said, that that which was the most precious object in life for me could be worthless No, no; I did not say that”
”A woman who sees a man perish, consumed by the fire she has kindled, and who does not allay that fire, is, in my opinion, a worthless woman”
”What can it matter to you what I said?” returned the comte ”What am I compared to you, and why should you even trouble yourself to knohether I exist or not?”
”Monsieur de Guiche, both you and I are hu you as I do, I do not wish you to risk your life; with you I will change my conduct and character I will be, not frank, for I am always so, but truthful I iet utterly that I have ever addressed a word or a glance towards you”
De Guiche turned around, bending a look full of passionate devotion upon her ”You,” he said; ”you excuse yourself; you iht to repair the evil I have done And so, coive my frivolity and ive you for having said I was frivolous and a coquette, or so worse, perhaps; and you will renounce your idea of dying, and will preserve for your fa, and for our sex, a cavalier whom every one esteems, and whom many hold dear” Madame pronounced this last word in such an accent of frankness, and even of tenderness, that poor De Guiche's heart felt al
”Oh! Madame, Madame!” he stammered out
”Nay, listen further,” she continued ”When you shall have renounced all thought of me forever, from necessity in the first place, and, next, because you will yield to e me more favorably, and I aive the frivolity of the expression-by a sincere friendshi+p, which you will be ready to offer me, and which, I promise you, shall be cordially accepted”
De Guiche, his forehead bedeith perspiration, a feeling of death in his heart, and a treh his whole fraround, and, in a word, devoured the bitterness of his grief ”Madame,” he said, ”what you offer is impossible, and I cannot accept such conditions”
”What!” said Madame, ”do you refuse my friendshi+p, then?”
”No, no! I do not need your friendshi+p, Madame I prefer to die from love, than to live for friendshi+p”
”Comte!”
”Oh! Madame,” cried De Guiche, ”the present is a moment for me, in which no other consideration and no other respect exist, than the consideration and respect of a man of honor towards the woman he worshi+ps Drive ht I have uttered co to my passion for you; I have said I wish to die, and die I will If I lived, you would forget etburied in thought, and nearly as agitated as De Guiche himself, turned aside her head as but a minute before he had turned aside his Then, after a moment's pause, she said, ”And you love h to die from it, whether you drive me from you, or whether you listen to me still”
”It is a hopeless case,” she said, in a playfulapplication Give me your hand It is as cold as ice” De Guiche knelt down, and pressed to his lips, not one, but both of Madame's hands
”Love me, then,” said the princess, ”since it cannot be otherwise” And al him thus, partly in the manner of a queen, and partly as a fond and affectionate woman would have done De Guiche trembled from head to foot, and Madah every fiber of his being, knew that he indeed loved truly ”Give me your arm, comte,” she said, ”and let us return”
”Ah! Mada and bewildered; ”you have discovered a third way of killing me”
”But, happily, it is the sloay, is it not?” she replied, as she led hirove of trees they had so lately quitted
Chapter XLVI Aramis's Correspondence
When De Guiche's affairs, which had been suddenly set to right without his having been able to guess the cause of their improvement, assumed the unexpected aspect we have seen, Raoul, in obedience to the request of the princess, had withdrawn in order not to interrupt an explanation, the results of which he was far fro; and he soon after joined the ladies of honor alking about in the flower-gardens During this time, the Chevalier de Lorraine, who had returned to his own room, read De Wardes's latter with surprise, for it informed him by the hand of his valet, of the sword-thrust received at Calais, and of all the details of the adventure, and invited hiht be in the affair likely to be reeable to both of them De Wardes particularly endeavored to prove to the chevalier the violence of Madahaht this feeling was returned The chevalier shrugged his shoulders at the last paragraph, and, in fact, De Wardes was out of date, as we have seen De Wardes was still only at Buckingham's affair The chevalier threw the letter over his shoulder upon an adjoining table, and said in a disdainful tone, ”It is really incredible; and yet poor De Wardes is not deficient in ability; but the truth is, it is not very apparent, so easy is it to grow rusty in the country The deuce take the siht to have written to me about matters of importance, and yet he writes such silly stuff as that If it had not been for thatat all in it, I should have detected in the grove yonder a charue, which would have coood as a sword-thrust for a man, and have diverted Monsieur for many days to come”
He looked at his watch ”It is now too late,” he said ”One o'clock in the 's apartht is to be finished; well, the scent is lost, and unless so, as if to appeal to his good star, the chevalier, greatly out of temper, approached the hich looked out upon a soarden Ienius was at his orders, he perceived returning towards the chateau, acconized the figure which had struck his attention half an hour previously
”Adether, ”this is my providentialthe staircase, hoping to reach the courtyard in tinize the woman in the mantle, and her companion But as he arrived at the door of the little court, he nearly knocked against Mada revelations beneath theher Unfortunately, Madame was alone The chevalier knew that since he had seen her, not five entleman in question could not be far off Consequently, he hardly took time to salute the princess as he drew up to allow her to pass; then when she had advanced a few steps, with the rapidity of a wonition, and when the chevalier perceived that she was too hts to trouble herself about hiarden, looked hastily round on every side, and elance as much of the horizon as he possibly could He was just in tiht; only he was hurrying towards one of the wings of the chateau, behind which he was on the point of disappearing There was not an instant to lose; the chevalier darted in pursuit of him, prepared to slacken his pace as he approached the unknown; but in spite of the diligence he used, the unknown had disappeared behind the flight of steps before he approached
It was evident, however, that as thequietly, in a pensive ht of grief or happiness, when once the angle was passed, unless, indeed, he were to enter by some door or another, the chevalier could not fail to overtake him And this, certainly, would have happened, if, at the very ainst two persons, ere the in the opposite direction The chevalier was ready to seek a quarrel with these two troublesonized the superintendent Fouquet was accompanied by a person whoer was the bishop of Vannes Checked by the ied out of politeness to make his own excuses when he expected to receive them, the chevalier stepped back a few paces; and as Monsieur Fouquet possessed, if not the friendshi+p, at least the respect of every one; as the king hih he was rather his enereat consideration, the chevalier did what the king himself would have done, namely, he bowed to M Fouquet, who returned his salutation with kindly politeness, perceiving that the gentleainst hi rude Then, alnized the Chevalier de Lorraine, he ed to reply Brief as the conversation was, De Lorraine saith thedi in the darkness The chevalier resigned hiave his entire attention to Fouquet:-”You arrive late, reat surprise, and I heard Monsieur express hi, you had not come”
”It was impossible for me to do so; but I came as soon as I was free”
”Is Paris quiet?”
”Perfectly so Paris has received the last tax very well”
”Ah! I understand you wished to assure yourself of this good feeling before you came to participate in our fetes”
”I have arrived, however, somewhat late to enjoy the is in the chateau or not, if I a, or if I shall have to wait until to- the last half-hour nearly,” said the chevalier
”Perhaps he is in Madame's apartments?” inquired Fouquet
”Not in Madame's apartments, I should think, for I just nowby the so encountered was the king hi that, in thisafter But Fouquet, whether he had or had not recognized De Guiche, si”
The chevalier, disappointed in his expectation, saluted thelance around hiroup, he said to the superintendent: ”Stay, monsieur; there is some one under the trees yonder, ill be able to inform you better than htedness prevented hih the darkness
”M Colbert,” returned the chevalier
”Indeed! That person, then, who is speaking yonder to those men with torches in their hands, is M Colbert?”
”M Colbert hi orders personally to the work the lamps for the illuminations”
”Thank you,” said Fouquet, with an inclination of the head, which indicated that he had obtained all the infor, on the contrary, learned nothing at all, withdreith a profound salutation
He had scarcely left when Fouquet, knitting his brows, fell into a deep reverie Ara of compassion and silence