Part 11

"That's right," said M. de Tréville, "I would have thought it was later. But come now, what do you want from me?"

Then d'Artagnan told M. de Tréville a long story about the queen. He explained the fears he had conceived regarding Her Majesty; he recounted what he had heard said of the cardinal's projects with respect to Buckingham, and all this with a calm and assurance that duped M. de Tréville all the more readily because he himself, as we have said, had noticed something new between the cardinal, the king, and the queen.

At ten o'clock striking, d'Artagnan left M. de Tréville, who thanked him for his information, recommended him to always have the service of the king and queen at heart, and returned to the drawing-room. But, at the bottom of the stairs, d'Artagnan remembered that he had forgotten his cane; consequently, he hurried back up, re-entered the study, with a twist of his finger put the clock back to its proper time, so that it could not be noticed the next day that it had been disturbed, and henceforth certain that there was a witness to prove his alibi, he descended the stairs and soon found himself in the street.

CHAPTER XI. THE INTRIGUE TIGHTENS

Having paid his visit to M. de Tréville, d'Artagnan, deep in thought, took the longest way home.

What was d'Artagnan thinking about, as he thus strayed from his path, gazing at the stars in the sky, and sighing one moment and smiling the next?

He was thinking of Mme Bonacieux. For an apprentice musketeer, the young woman was almost an amorous ideal. Pretty, mysterious, initiated into almost all the court secrets, which reflected so much charming gravity upon her graceful features, she was suspected of not being insensible, which is an irresistible attraction for novice lovers; moreover, d'Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of those demons who wanted to search and mistreat her, and this important service had established between her and him one of those sentiments of gratitude that so easily take on a more tender character.

D'Artagnan already saw himself—so swiftly do dreams travel on the wings of imagination—accosted by a messenger from the young woman who would hand him some note for a rendezvous, a gold chain, or a diamond. We have said that young cavaliers received without shame from their king; let us add that in this time of easy morals, they had no more shame with regard to their mistresses, and that the latter almost always left them precious and lasting souvenirs, as if they had tried to conquer the fragility of their sentiments by the solidity of their gifts.

In those days, one made one's way by means of women, without blushing. Those who were only beautiful gave their beauty, and hence no doubt the proverb that the most beautiful girl in the world can give only what she has. Those who were rich gave in addition a part of their money, and one could cite many heroes of that gallant age who would have earned neither their spurs first, nor their battles afterward, without the more or less well-filled purse that their mistress attached to the bow of their saddle.

D'Artagnan possessed nothing; the hesitation of the provincial, a light varnish, an ephemeral flower, the down of the peach, had evaporated in the wind of the somewhat unorthodox advice that the three musketeers gave their friend. D'Artagnan, following the strange custom of the time, considered himself in Paris as in a campaign, and that neither more nor less than in Flanders: the Spaniard there, the woman here. Everywhere it was an enemy to fight, contributions to levy.

But, let us say it, for the moment d'Artagnan was moved by a nobler and more disinterested sentiment. The mercer had told him he was rich; the young man could have guessed that with a simpleton like M. Bonacieux, it must be the wife who held the key to the purse. But all that had had no influence on the feeling produced by the sight of Mme Bonacieux, and interest had remained almost foreign to this beginning of love that had followed from it. We say: almost, because the idea that a young woman, beautiful, graceful, witty, is also rich, takes nothing away from that beginning of love, and on the contrary strengthens it.

There is in ease a host of aristocratic cares and caprices that suit beauty well. A fine white stocking, a silk dress, a lace guimpe, a pretty shoe on the foot, a fresh ribbon on the head, do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they make a pretty woman beautiful, not to mention the hands that gain from all that; hands, especially in women, need to remain idle in order to remain beautiful.

Then d'Artagnan, as the reader well knows, to whom we have not hidden the state of his fortune, d'Artagnan was not a millionaire; he hoped to become one someday, but the time he set himself for that happy change was fairly distant. Meanwhile, what despair to see a woman one loves desire those thousand trifles that make up women's happiness, and not be able to give her those thousand trifles! At least, when the woman is rich and the lover is not, what he cannot offer her she offers herself; and although it is usually with the husband's money that she provides herself this pleasure, it is rare that it is to him that the gratitude returns.

Then d'Artagnan, disposed to be the most tender lover, was meanwhile a very devoted friend. In the midst of his amorous projects concerning the mercer's wife, he did not forget his friends. The pretty Mme Bonacieux was the kind of woman to take for a walk in the plain of Saint-Denis or at the Saint-Germain fair in company with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, to whom d'Artagnan would be proud to show such a conquest. Then, when one has walked a long time, hunger comes; d'Artagnan had noticed that for some time. They would have those charming little dinners where one touches on one side the hand of a friend, and on the other the foot of a mistress. Finally, in pressing moments, in extreme situations, d'Artagnan would be the savior of his friends.

And M. Bonacieux, whom d'Artagnan had pushed into the hands of the constables while loudly disowning him and to whom he had promised under his breath to save him? We must confess to our readers that d'Artagnan did not think of him at all, or, if he thought of him, it was to say to himself that he was well off wherever he was, wherever that might be. Love is the most selfish of all passions.

However, let our readers be reassured: if d'Artagnan forgets his host or pretends to forget him, on the pretext that he does not know where he has been taken, we do not forget him, and we know where he is. But for the moment let us do as the lovesick Gascon. As for the worthy mercer, we shall return to him later.

D'Artagnan, while reflecting on his future loves, while talking to the night, while smiling at the stars, was going up the Rue du Cherche-Midi or Chasse-Midi, as it was then called. Since he found himself in Aramis's neighborhood, the idea had come to him to go pay a visit to his friend, to give him some explanations about the reasons that had led him to send Planchet with an invitation to come immediately to the mousetrap. Now, if Aramis had been at home when Planchet came, he had without doubt run to the Rue des Fossoyeurs, and finding only his two other companions perhaps, neither of them would have known what it all meant. This disturbance therefore deserved an explanation—that's what d'Artagnan said aloud.

Then, under his breath, he thought that it was an opportunity for him to talk about the pretty little Mme Bonacieux, with whom his mind, if not his heart, was already quite full. It is not at the time of a first love that one should ask for discretion. This first love is accompanied by such great joy that this joy must overflow, otherwise it would suffocate you.

Paris for two hours had been dark and was beginning to grow deserted. Eleven o'clock was striking on all the clocks of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; the weather was mild. D'Artagnan was following a lane situated on the spot where the Rue d'Assas runs today, breathing the fragrant emanations that came with the wind from the Rue de Vaugirard and that were sent forth by the gardens refreshed by the evening dew and the night breeze. In the distance, muffled however by good shutters, resounded the songs of drinkers in some taverns lost in the plain. Having reached the end of the lane, d'Artagnan turned left. The house where Aramis lived was situated between the Rue Cassette and the Rue Servandoni.

D'Artagnan had just passed the Rue Cassette and already recognized the door of his friend's house, buried under a mass of sycamores and clematis that formed a vast bulge above it, when he perceived something like a shadow coming out of the Rue Servandoni. This something was wrapped in a cloak, and d'Artagnan first thought it was a man; but, by the smallness of stature, the uncertainty of the gait, the hesitation of the step, he soon recognized a woman. Moreover, this woman, as if she were not quite sure of the house she was looking for, raised her eyes to orient herself, stopped, turned back, then came forward again. D'Artagnan was intrigued.

"What if I offered her my services!" he thought. "From her bearing, one can see she is young; perhaps pretty. Oh yes! But a woman roaming the streets at this hour hardly goes out except to meet her lover. Peste! If I were to disturb a rendezvous, that would be a bad way to start a relationship."

However, the young woman kept advancing, counting the houses and windows. It was, moreover, neither long nor difficult. There were only three hotels in that part of the street, and two windows looking onto that street; one was that of a pavilion parallel to the one Aramis occupied, the other was that of Aramis himself.

"Pardieu!" said d'Artagnan to himself, to whom the theologian's niece came back to mind, "pardieu! it would be funny if this belated dove were looking for our friend's house. But upon my soul, it greatly resembles that. Ah! my dear Aramis, for once, I want to get to the bottom of this."

And d'Artagnan, making himself as thin as he could, took shelter in the darkest side of the street, near a stone bench situated at the back of a niche.

The young woman continued to advance, for besides the lightness of her gait, which had betrayed her, she had just given a little cough that revealed a very fresh voice. D'Artagnan thought that this cough was a signal.

However, either because someone had answered this cough with an equivalent sign that had fixed the irresolution of the nocturnal seeker, or because without outside help she had recognized that she had reached the end of her course, she approached resolutely to Aramis's shutter and knocked three times at equal intervals with her bent finger.

"It's indeed at Aramis's," murmured d'Artagnan. "Ah! Monsieur the hypocrite! I catch you at doing theology!"

The three knocks were scarcely struck when the inner casement opened and a light appeared through the panes of the shutter.

"Ah! ah!" said the listener, not at doors but at windows, "ah! the visit was expected. Come, the shutter will open and the lady will enter by climbing. Very good!"

But, to d'Artagnan's great astonishment, the shutter remained closed. Moreover, the light that had flared for an instant disappeared, and everything returned to darkness.

D'Artagnan thought this could not last, and continued to look with all his eyes and listen with all his ears.

He was right: after a few seconds, two sharp knocks resounded from inside.

The young woman in the street answered with a single knock, and the shutter half-opened.

One can judge whether d'Artagnan was looking and listening eagerly.

Unfortunately, the light had been moved to another room. But the young man's eyes had become accustomed to the night. Besides, the eyes of Gascons are said to have, like those of cats, the property of seeing in the dark.

D'Artagnan therefore saw the young woman pull from her pocket a white object which she quickly unfolded and which took the form of a handkerchief. Having unfolded this object, she drew the attention of her interlocutor to its corner.

This reminded d'Artagnan of that handkerchief he had found at Mme Bonacieux's feet, which had reminded him of the one he had found at Aramis's feet.

"What the devil could this handkerchief mean?"

Placed where he was, d'Artagnan could not see Aramis's face—we say Aramis, because the young man had no doubt that it was his friend who was conversing from inside with the lady outside; curiosity therefore overcame prudence, and, profiting from the preoccupation in which the sight of the handkerchief seemed to plunge the two characters we have put on stage, he came out of his hiding place, and swift as lightning, but muffling the sound of his steps, he went and pressed himself against an angle of the wall, from where his eye could perfectly see into the interior of Aramis's apartment.

Arrived there, d'Artagnan thought he would cry out in surprise: it was not Aramis who was conversing with the nocturnal visitor, it was a woman. Only, d'Artagnan could see enough to recognize the shape of her clothes, but not enough to distinguish her features.

At the same moment, the woman in the apartment pulled a second handkerchief from her pocket, and exchanged it with the one that had just been shown to her. Then, a few words were exchanged between the two women. Finally the shutter closed; the woman who was outside the window turned around, and came to pass within four steps of d'Artagnan, lowering the hood of her cloak; but the precaution had been taken too late, d'Artagnan had already recognized Mme Bonacieux.

Mme Bonacieux! The suspicion that it was she had already crossed his mind when she had pulled the handkerchief from her pocket; but what probability was there that Mme Bonacieux, who had sent for M. de La Porte to have him escort her back to the Louvre, would roam the streets of Paris alone at half past eleven at night, at the risk of being abducted a second time?

It must, therefore, be for a very important matter; and what is the important matter of a woman of twenty-five? Love.

But was it on her own account or on account of another person that she exposed herself to such risks? That is what the young man asked himself, whom the demon of jealousy was biting at the heart no less than a full-fledged lover.

There was, moreover, a very simple means of ensuring where Mme Bonacieux was going: that was to follow her. This means was so simple that d'Artagnan employed it quite naturally and instinctively.

But, at the sight of the young man detaching himself from the wall like a statue from its niche, and at the sound of steps she heard echoing behind her, Mme Bonacieux gave a little cry and fled.

D'Artagnan ran after her. It was not a difficult thing for him to catch up with a woman hampered by her cloak. He therefore caught up with her at the third of the street into which she had turned. The poor woman was exhausted, not from fatigue, but from terror, and when d'Artagnan laid his hand on her shoulder, she fell on one knee, crying in a strangled voice:

"Kill me if you will, but you shall know nothing."

D'Artagnan raised her, passing his arm around her waist; but as he felt from her weight that she was about to faint, he hastened to reassure her with protestations of devotion. These protestations meant nothing to Mme Bonacieux; for such protestations can be made with the worst intentions in the world; but the voice was everything. The young woman thought she recognized the sound of that voice: she opened her eyes, cast a glance at the man who had frightened her so, and recognizing d'Artagnan, she gave a cry of joy.

"Oh! it is you, it is you!" she said; "thank God!

"Yes, it is I," said d'Artagnan, "I whom God has sent to watch over you.

"Was it with that intention that you were following me?" asked the young woman with a coquettish smile, whose slightly mocking character was regaining the upper hand, and in whom all fear had vanished the moment she recognized a friend in the one she had taken for an enemy.

"No," said d'Artagnan, "no, I confess; it was chance that put you in my path; I saw a woman knock at the window of one of my friends…

"One of your friends?" interrupted Mme Bonacieux.

"Certainly; Aramis is one of my best friends.

"Aramis! what is that?

"Come now! Are you going to tell me you don't know Aramis?

"It is the first time I have heard that name pronounced.

"Then it is the first time you have come to this house?

"Certainly.

"And you did not know that it was inhabited by a young man?

"No.

"By a musketeer?

"Not at all.

"Then it was not he whom you came to see?

"Not in the least. Besides, you saw well, the person I spoke to is a woman.

"That is true; but that woman is a friend of Aramis's.

"I know nothing of that.

"Since she lives at his place.

"That does not concern me.

"But who is she?

"Oh! that is not my secret.

"Dear Mme Bonacieux, you are charming; but at the same time you are the most mysterious woman…

"Do I lose by that?

"No; on the contrary, you are adorable.

"Then give me your arm.

"Very willingly. And now?

"Now, take me.

"Where?

"Where I am going.

"But where are you going?

"You will see, since you will leave me at the door.

"Must I wait for you?

"That will be unnecessary.

"Then you will return alone?

"Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

"But the person who will accompany you afterward—will it be a man, will it be a woman?

"I do not yet know.

"I will know it, though!

"How so?

"I will wait for you to see you come out.

"In that case, farewell!

"How so?

"I have no need of you.

"But you had asked…

"For the help of a gentleman, not for the surveillance of a spy.

"The word is a bit harsh!

"What do you call those who follow people against their will?

"The indiscreet.

"The word is too mild.

"Come, madame, I see well that I must do everything you wish.

"Why deprive yourself of the merit of doing it at once?

"Is there no merit in repenting?

"And do you truly repent?

"I do not know myself. But what I know is that I promise you to do everything you wish if you let me accompany you to where you are going.

"And you will leave me afterward?

"Yes.

"Without spying on me when I come out?

"No.

"Word of honor?

"Word of a gentleman!

"Then take my arm and let us walk."

D'Artagnan offered his arm to Mme Bonacieux, who hung on it, half laughing, half trembling, and they both went to the top of the Rue de La Harpe. Arrived there, the young woman seemed to hesitate, as she had already done in the Rue de Vaugirard. However, by certain signs, she appeared to recognize a door; and approaching this door:

"And now, monsieur," she said, "this is where I have business; a thousand thanks for your honorable company, which has saved me from all the dangers to which, alone, I would have been exposed. But the moment has come to keep your word: I have reached my destination.

"And you will have nothing more to fear on your return?

"Nothing to fear but thieves.

"Is that nothing?

"What could they take from me? I do not have a penny on me.

"You forget that beautiful embroidered handkerchief with the coat of arms.

"Which one?

"The one I found at your feet and put back in your pocket.

"Be quiet, be quiet, wretch!" cried the young woman, "do you want to ruin me?

"You see well that there is still danger for you, since a single word makes you tremble, and you admit that if that word were heard, you would be ruined. Ah! look here, madame," cried d'Artagnan, seizing her hand and covering it with an ardent gaze, "look here! be more generous, confide in me; have you not read in my eyes that there is only devotion and sympathy in my heart?

"Yes, indeed," replied Mme Bonacieux; "so ask me my secrets, and I will tell them to you; but those of others are another matter.

"Very well," said d'Artagnan, "I will discover them; since these secrets can have influence on your life, these secrets must become mine.

"Beware of that," cried the young woman with a seriousness that made d'Artagnan shudder despite himself. "Oh! do not meddle in anything that concerns me, do not seek to help me in what I am doing; and that, I ask you in the name of the interest I inspire in you, in the name of the service you have rendered me! and which I will never forget in my life. Rather believe what I tell you. Concern yourself no more with me, I no longer exist for you, let it be as if you had never seen me.

"Must Aramis do as much as I, madame?" said d'Artagnan, piqued.

"This is two or three times you have pronounced that name, monsieur, and yet I told you I do not know him.

"You do not know the man at whose shutter you went knocking. Come now, madame! you think me too credulous, then!

"Confess that it is to make me speak that you invent this story, and that you create this character.

"I invent nothing, madame, I create nothing, I tell the exact truth.

"And you say that one of your friends lives in this house?

"I say it and I repeat it for the third time, this house is that of my friend, and that friend is Aramis.

"All that will become clear later," murmured the young woman; "now, monsieur, be quiet.

"If you could see my heart completely laid bare," said d'Artagnan, "you would read in it so much curiosity that you would take pity on me, and so much love that you would satisfy my curiosity immediately. One has nothing to fear from those who love you.

"You speak very quickly of love, monsieur!" said the young woman, shaking her head.

"It is that love came to me quickly and for the first time, and I am not twenty years old."

The young woman glanced at him surreptitiously.

"Listen, I am already on the track," said d'Artagnan. "Three months ago, I nearly had a duel with Aramis over a handkerchief similar to the one you showed to that woman who was at his place, over a handkerchief marked in the same manner, I am sure of it.

"Monsieur," said the young woman, "you weary me greatly, I swear, with these questions.

"But you, so prudent, madame, consider: if you were arrested with that handkerchief, and that handkerchief were seized, would you not be compromised?

"Why so? Are not the initials mine: C.B., Constance Bonacieux?

"Or Camille de Bois-Tracy.

"Silence, monsieur, once more, silence! Ah! since the dangers I run for myself do not stop you, think of those you may run yourself!

"Me?

“Stories of the world, in your language.”