Essential Novelists - Alexandre Dumas. Alexandre Dumas

it were one of your friends you would hesitate, then?” cried Milady; and a threatening glance darted from her eyes.

      “Not if it were my own brother!” cried d’Artagnan, as if carried away by his enthusiasm.

      Our Gascon promised this without risk, for he knew all that was meant.

      “I love your devotedness,” said Milady.

      “Alas, do you love nothing else in me?” asked d’Artagnan.

      “I love you also, YOU!” said she, taking his hand.

      The warm pressure made d’Artagnan tremble, as if by the touch that fever which consumed Milady attacked himself.

      “You love me, you!” cried he. “Oh, if that were so, I should lose my reason!”

      And he folded her in his arms. She made no effort to remove her lips from his kisses; only she did not respond to them. Her lips were cold; it appeared to d’Artagnan that he had embraced a statue.

      He was not the less intoxicated with joy, electrified by love. He almost believed in the tenderness of Milady; he almost believed in the crime of de Wardes. If de Wardes had at that moment been under his hand, he would have killed him.

      Milady seized the occasion.

      “His name is—” said she, in her turn.

      “De Wardes; I know it,” cried d’Artagnan.

      “And how do you know it?” asked Milady, seizing both his hands, and endeavoring to read with her eyes to the bottom of his heart.

      D’Artagnan felt he had allowed himself to be carried away, and that he had committed an error.

      “Tell me, tell me, tell me, I say,” repeated Milady, “how do you know it?”

      “How do I know it?” said d’Artagnan.

      “Yes.”

      “I know it because yesterday Monsieur de Wardes, in a saloon where I was, showed a ring which he said he had received from you.”

      “Wretch!” cried Milady.

      The epithet, as may be easily understood, resounded to the very bottom of d’Artagnan’s heart.

      “Well?” continued she.

      “Well, I will avenge you of this wretch,” replied d’Artagnan, giving himself the airs of Don Japhet of Armenia.

      “Thanks, my brave friend!” cried Milady; “and when shall I be avenged?”

      “Tomorrow—immediately—when you please!”

      Milady was about to cry out, “Immediately,” but she reflected that such precipitation would not be very gracious toward d’Artagnan.

      Besides, she had a thousand precautions to take, a thousand counsels to give to her defender, in order that he might avoid explanations with the count before witnesses. All this was answered by an expression of d’Artagnan’s. “Tomorrow,” said he, “you will be avenged, or I shall be dead.”

      “No,” said she, “you will avenge me; but you will not be dead. He is a coward.”

      “With women, perhaps; but not with men. I know something of him.”

      “But it seems you had not much reason to complain of your fortune in your contest with him.”

      “Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back tomorrow.”

      “Which means that you now hesitate?”

      “No, I do not hesitate; God forbid! But would it be just to allow me to go to a possible death without having given me at least something more than hope?”

      Milady answered by a glance which said, “Is that all?—speak, then.” And then accompanying the glance with explanatory words, “That is but too just,” said she, tenderly.

      “Oh, you are an angel!” exclaimed the young man.

      “Then all is agreed?” said she.

      “Except that which I ask of you, dear love.”

      “But when I assure you that you may rely on my tenderness?”

      “I cannot wait till tomorrow.”

      “Silence! I hear my brother. It will be useless for him to find you here.”

      She rang the bell and Kitty appeared.

      “Go out this way,” said she, opening a small private door, “and come back at eleven o’clock; we will then terminate this conversation. Kitty will conduct you to my chamber.”

      The poor girl almost fainted at hearing these words.

      “Well, mademoiselle, what are you thinking about, standing there like a statue? Do as I bid you: show the chevalier out; and this evening at eleven o’clock—you have heard what I said.”

      “It appears that these appointments are all made for eleven o’clock,” thought d’Artagnan; “that’s a settled custom.”

      Milady held out her hand to him, which he kissed tenderly.

      “But,” said he, as he retired as quickly as possible from the reproaches of Kitty, “I must not play the fool. This woman is certainly a great liar. I must take care.”

       37 MILADY’S SECRET

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      D’ARTAGNAN LEFT THE hotel instead of going up at once to Kitty’s chamber, as she endeavored to persuade him to do—and that for two reasons: the first, because by this means he should escape reproaches, recriminations, and prayers; the second, because he was not sorry to have an opportunity of reading his own thoughts and endeavoring, if possible, to fathom those of this woman.

      What was most clear in the matter was that d’Artagnan loved Milady like a madman, and that she did not love him at all. In an instant d’Artagnan perceived that the best way in which he could act would be to go home and write Milady a long letter, in which he would confess to her that he and de Wardes were, up to the present moment absolutely the same, and that consequently he could not undertake, without committing suicide, to kill the Comte de Wardes. But he also was spurred on by a ferocious desire of vengeance. He wished to subdue this woman in his own name; and as this vengeance appeared to him to have a certain sweetness in it, he could not make up his mind to renounce it.

      He walked six or seven times round the Place Royale, turning at every ten steps to look at the light in Milady’s apartment, which was to be seen through the blinds. It was evident that this time the young woman was not in such haste to retire to her apartment as she had been the first.

      At length the light disappeared. With this light was extinguished the last irresolution in the heart of d’Artagnan. He recalled to his mind the details of the first night, and with a beating heart and a brain on fire he re-entered the hotel and flew toward Kitty’s chamber.

      The poor girl, pale as death and trembling in all her limbs, wished to delay her lover; but Milady, with her ear on the watch, had heard the noise d’Artagnan had made, and opening the door, said, “Come in.”

      All this was of such incredible immodesty, of such monstrous effrontery, that d’Artagnan could scarcely believe what he saw or what he heard. He imagined himself to be drawn into one of those fantastic intrigues one meets in dreams. He, however, darted not the less quickly toward Milady, yielding to that magnetic attraction which the loadstone exercises over iron.

      As the door