Part 24 (1/2)
”Yes, it is I,” said d'Artagnan, ”it is I, whom G.o.d has sent to watch over you.”
”Was it with that intention you followed me?” asked the young woman, with a coquettish smile, whose somewhat bantering character resumed its influence, and with whom all fear had disappeared from the moment in which she recognized a friend in one she had taken for an enemy.
”No,” said d'Artagnan; ”no, I confess it. It was chance that threw me in your way; I saw a woman knocking at the window of one of my friends.”
”One of your friends?” interrupted Mme. Bonacieux.
”Without doubt; Aramis is one of my best friends.”
”Aramis! Who is he?”
”Come, come, you won't tell me you don't know Aramis?”
”This is the first time I ever heard his name p.r.o.nounced.”
”It is the first time, then, that you ever went to that house?”
”Undoubtedly.”
”And you did not know that it was inhabited by a young man?”
”No.”
”By a Musketeer?”
”No, indeed!”
”It was not he, then, you came to seek?”
”Not the least in the world. Besides, you must have seen that the person to whom I spoke was a woman.”
”That is true; but this woman is a friend of Aramis--”
”I know nothing of that.”
”--since she lodges with him.”
”That does not concern me.”
”But who is she?”
”Oh, that is not my secret.”
”My dear Madame Bonacieux, you are charming; but at the same time you are one of the most mysterious women.”
”Do I lose by that?”
”No; you are, on the contrary, adorable.”
”Give me your arm, then.”