LITMIR.BIZ

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monsieur,” said Planchet, who had observed his master grow red and pale successively, “did I not guess truly? Is it not some bad affair?”

      “You are mistaken, Planchet,” replied d’Artagnan; “and as a proof, there is a crown to drink my health.”

      “I am much obliged to Monsieur for the crown he had given me, and I promise him to follow his instructions exactly; but it is not the less true that letters which come in this way into shut-up houses—”

      “Fall from heaven, my friend, fall from heaven.”

      “Then Monsieur is satisfied?” asked Planchet.

      “My dear Planchet, I am the happiest of men!”

      “And I may profit by Monsieur’s happiness, and go to bed?”

      “Yes, go.”

      “May the blessings of heaven fall upon Monsieur! But it is not the less true that that letter—”

      And Planchet retired, shaking his head with an air of doubt, which the liberality of d’Artagnan had not entirely effaced.

      Left alone, d’Artagnan read and reread his billet. Then he kissed and rekissed twenty times the lines traced by the hand of his beautiful mistress. At length he went to bed, fell asleep, and had golden dreams.

      At seven o’clock in the morning he arose and called Planchet, who at the second summons opened the door, his countenance not yet quite freed from the anxiety of the preceding night.

      “Planchet,” said d’Artagnan, “I am going out for all day, perhaps. You are, therefore, your own master till seven o’clock in the evening; but at seven o’clock you must hold yourself in readiness with two horses.”

      “There!” said Planchet. “We are going again, it appears, to have our hides pierced in all sorts of ways.”

      “You will take your musketoon and your pistols.”

      “There, now! Didn’t I say so?” cried Planchet. “I was sure of it—the cursed letter!”

      “Don’t be afraid, you idiot; there is nothing in hand but a party of pleasure.”

      “Ah, like the charming journey the other day, when it rained bullets and produced a crop of steel traps!”

      “Well, if you are really afraid, Monsieur Planchet,” resumed d’Artagnan, “I will go without you. I prefer traveling alone to having a companion who entertains the least fear.”

      “Monsieur does me wrong,” said Planchet; “I thought he had seen me at work.”

      “Yes, but I thought perhaps you had worn out all your courage the first time.”

      “Monsieur shall see that upon occasion I have some left; only I beg Monsieur not to be too prodigal of it if he wishes it to last long.”

      “Do you believe you have still a certain amount of it to expend this evening?”

      “I hope so, monsieur.”

      “Well, then, I count on you.”

      “At the appointed hour I shall be ready; only I believed that Monsieur had but one horse in the Guard stables.”

      “Perhaps there is but one at this moment; but by this evening there will be four.”

      “It appears that our journey was a remounting journey, then?”

      “Exactly so,” said d’Artagnan; and nodding to Planchet, he went out.

      M Bonacieux was at his door. D’Artagnan’s intention was to go out without speaking to the worthy mercer; but the latter made so polite and friendly a salutation that his tenant felt obliged, not only to stop, but to enter into conversation with him.

      Besides, how is it possible to avoid a little condescension toward a husband whose pretty wife has appointed a meeting with you that same evening at St. Cloud, opposite D’Estrees’s pavilion? D’Artagnan approached him with the most amiable air he could assume.

      The conversation naturally fell upon the incarceration of the poor man. M. Bonacieux, who was ignorant that d’Artagnan had overheard his conversation with the stranger of Meung, related to his young tenant the persecutions of that monster, M. de Laffemas, whom he never ceased to designate, during his account, by the title of the “cardinal’s executioner,” and expatiated at great length upon the Bastille, the bolts, the wickets, the dungeons, the gratings, the instruments of torture.

      D’Artagnan listened to him with exemplary complaisance, and when he had finished said, “And Madame Bonacieux, do you know who carried her off?—For I do not forget that I owe to that unpleasant circumstance the good fortune of having made your acquaintance.”

      “Ah!” said Bonacieux, “they took good care not to tell me that; and my wife, on her part, has sworn to me by all that’s sacred that she does not know. But you,” continued M. Bonacieux, in a tine of perfect good fellowship, “what has become of you all these days? I have not seen you nor your friends, and I don’t think you could gather all that dust that I saw Planchet brush off your boots yesterday from the pavement of Paris.”

      “You are right, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, my friends and I have been on a little journey.”

      “Far from here?”

      “Oh, Lord, no! About forty leagues only. We went to take Monsieur Athos to the waters of Forges, where my friends still remain.”

      “And you have returned, have you not?” replied M. Bonacieux, giving to his countenance a most sly air. “A handsome young fellow like you does not obtain long leaves of absence from his mistress; and we were impatiently waited for at Paris, were we not?”

      “My faith!” said the young man, laughing, “I confess it, and so much more the readily, my dear Bonacieux, as I see there is no concealing anything from you. Yes, I was expected, and very impatiently, I acknowledge.”

      A slight shade passed over the brow of Bonacieux, but so slight that d’Artagnan did not perceive it.

      “And we are going to be recompensed for our diligence?” continued the mercer, with a trifling alteration in his voice—so trifling, indeed, that d’Artagnan did not perceive it any more than he had the momentary shade which, an instant before, had darkened the countenance of the worthy man.

      “Ah, may you be a true prophet!” said d’Artagnan, laughing.

      “No; what I say,” replied Bonacieux, “is only that I may know whether I am delaying you.”

      “Why that question, my dear host?” asked d’Artagnan. “Do you intend to sit up for me?”

      “No; but since my arrest and the robbery that was committed in my house, I am alarmed every time I hear a door open, particularly in the night. What the deuce can you expect? I am no swordsman.”

      “Well, don’t be alarmed if I return at one, two or three o’clock in the morning; indeed, do not be alarmed if I do not come at all.”

      This time Bonacieux became so pale that d’Artagnan could not help perceiving it, and asked him what was the matter.

      “Nothing,” replied Bonacieux, “nothing. Since my misfortunes I have been subject to faintnesses, which seize me all at once, and I have just felt a cold shiver. Pay no attention to it; you have nothing to occupy yourself with but being happy.”

      “Then I have full occupation, for I am so.”

      “Not yet; wait a little! This evening, you said.”

      “Well, this evening will come, thank God! And perhaps you look for it with as much impatience as I do; perhaps this evening Madame Bonacieux will visit the conjugal domicile.”

      “Madame Bonacieux is not at liberty this evening,” replied the husband, seriously;

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