Essential Novelists - Alexandre Dumas. Alexandre Dumas

the lady with the black hood, who saw in her a rival really to be dreaded; a great effect upon Porthos, who thought her much prettier than the lady with the black hood; a great effect upon d’Artagnan, who recognized in her the lady of Meung, of Calais, and of Dover, whom his persecutor, the man with the scar, had saluted by the name of Milady.

      D’Artagnan, without losing sight of the lady of the red cushion, continued to watch the proceedings of Porthos, which amused him greatly. He guessed that the lady of the black hood was the procurator’s wife of the Rue aux Ours, which was the more probable from the church of St. Leu being not far from that locality.

      He guessed, likewise, by induction, that Porthos was taking his revenge for the defeat of Chantilly, when the procurator’s wife had proved so refractory with respect to her purse.

      Amid all this, d’Artagnan remarked also that not one countenance responded to the gallantries of Porthos. There were only chimeras and illusions; but for real love, for true jealousy, is there any reality except illusions and chimeras?

      The sermon over, the procurator’s wife advanced toward the holy font. Porthos went before her, and instead of a finger, dipped his whole hand in. The procurator’s wife smiled, thinking that it was for her Porthos had put himself to this trouble; but she was cruelly and promptly undeceived. When she was only about three steps from him, he turned his head round, fixing his eyes steadfastly upon the lady with the red cushion, who had risen and was approaching, followed by her black boy and her woman.

      When the lady of the red cushion came close to Porthos, Porthos drew his dripping hand from the font. The fair worshipper touched the great hand of Porthos with her delicate fingers, smiled, made the sign of the cross, and left the church.

      This was too much for the procurator’s wife; she doubted not there was an intrigue between this lady and Porthos. If she had been a great lady she would have fainted; but as she was only a procurator’s wife, she contented herself saying to the Musketeer with concentrated fury, “Eh, Monsieur Porthos, you don’t offer me any holy water?”

      Porthos, at the sound of that voice, started like a man awakened from a sleep of a hundred years.

      “Ma-madame!” cried he; “is that you? How is your husband, our dear Monsieur Coquenard? Is he still as stingy as ever? Where can my eyes have been not to have seen you during the two hours of the sermon?”

      “I was within two paces of you, monsieur,” replied the procurator’s wife; “but you did not perceive me because you had no eyes but for the pretty lady to whom you just now gave the holy water.”

      Porthos pretended to be confused. “Ah,” said he, “you have remarked—”

      “I must have been blind not to have seen.”

      “Yes,” said Porthos, “that is a duchess of my acquaintance whom I have great trouble to meet on account of the jealousy of her husband, and who sent me word that she should come today to this poor church, buried in this vile quarter, solely for the sake of seeing me.”

      “Monsieur Porthos,” said the procurator’s wife, “will you have the kindness to offer me your arm for five minutes? I have something to say to you.”

      “Certainly, madame,” said Porthos, winking to himself, as a gambler does who laughs at the dupe he is about to pluck.

      At that moment d’Artagnan passed in pursuit of Milady; he cast a passing glance at Porthos, and beheld this triumphant look.

      “Eh, eh!” said he, reasoning to himself according to the strangely easy morality of that gallant period, “there is one who will be equipped in good time!”

      Porthos, yielding to the pressure of the arm of the procurator’s wife, as a bark yields to the rudder, arrived at the cloister St. Magloire—a little-frequented passage, enclosed with a turnstile at each end. In the daytime nobody was seen there but mendicants devouring their crusts, and children at play.

      “Ah, Monsieur Porthos,” cried the procurator’s wife, when she was assured that no one who was a stranger to the population of the locality could either see or hear her, “ah, Monsieur Porthos, you are a great conqueror, as it appears!”

      “I, madame?” said Porthos, drawing himself up proudly; “how so?”

      “The signs just now, and the holy water! But that must be a princess, at least—that lady with her Negro boy and her maid!”

      “My God! Madame, you are deceived,” said Porthos; “she is simply a duchess.”

      “And that running footman who waited at the door, and that carriage with a coachman in grand livery who sat waiting on his seat?”

      Porthos had seen neither the footman nor the carriage, but with the eye of a jealous woman, Mme. Coquenard had seen everything.

      Porthos regretted that he had not at once made the lady of the red cushion a princess.

      “Ah, you are quite the pet of the ladies, Monsieur Porthos!” resumed the procurator’s wife, with a sigh.

      “Well,” responded Porthos, “you may imagine, with the physique with which nature has endowed me, I am not in want of good luck.”

      “Good Lord, how quickly men forget!” cried the procurator’s wife, raising her eyes toward heaven.

      “Less quickly than the women, it seems to me,” replied Porthos; “for I, madame, I may say I was your victim, when wounded, dying, I was abandoned by the surgeons. I, the offspring of a noble family, who placed reliance upon your friendship—I was near dying of my wounds at first, and of hunger afterward, in a beggarly inn at Chantilly, without you ever deigning once to reply to the burning letters I addressed to you.”

      “But, Monsieur Porthos,” murmured the procurator’s wife, who began to feel that, to judge by the conduct of the great ladies of the time, she was wrong.

      “I, who had sacrificed for you the Baronne de—”

      “I know it well.”

      “The Comtesse de—”

      “Monsieur Porthos, be generous!”

      “You are right, madame, and I will not finish.”

      “But it was my husband who would not hear of lending.”

      “Madame Coquenard,” said Porthos, “remember the first letter you wrote me, and which I preserve engraved in my memory.”

      The procurator’s wife uttered a groan.

      “Besides,” said she, “the sum you required me to borrow was rather large.”

      “Madame Coquenard, I gave you the preference. I had but to write to the Duchesse—but I won’t repeat her name, for I am incapable of compromising a woman; but this I know, that I had but to write to her and she would have sent me fifteen hundred.”

      The procurator’s wife shed a tear.

      “Monsieur Porthos,” said she, “I can assure you that you have severely punished me; and if in the time to come you should find yourself in a similar situation, you have but to apply to me.”

      “Fie, madame, fie!” said Porthos, as if disgusted. “Let us not talk about money, if you please; it is humiliating.”

      “Then you no longer love me!” said the procurator’s wife, slowly and sadly.

      Porthos maintained a majestic silence.

      “And that is the only reply you make? Alas, I understand.”

      “Think of the offense you have committed toward me, madame! It remains HERE!” said Porthos, placing his hand on his heart, and pressing it strongly.

      “I will repair it, indeed I will, my dear Porthos.”

      “Besides, what did I ask of you?” resumed Porthos, with a movement