TWO JEALOUSIES.
Lovers are very tender toward everything which concerns the person they
are in love with. Raoul no sooner found himself alone with Montalais
than he kissed her hand with rapture. "There, there," said the young
girl sadly, "you are throwing your kisses away; I will guarantee that
they will not bring you back any interest."
"How so?--Why?--Will you explain to me, my dear Aure?"
"Madame will explain everything to you. I am going to take you to her
apartments."
"What!"
"Silence! and throw aside your wild and savage looks. The windows here
have eyes, the walls have ears. Have the kindness not to look at me any
longer; be good enough to speak to me aloud of the rain, of the fine
weather, and of the charms of England."
"At all events--" interrupted Raoul.
"I tell you, I warn you, that wherever it may be, I know not now, Madame
is sure to have eyes and ears open. I am not very desirous, you can
easily believe, to be dismissed or thrown into the Bastille. Let us
talk, I tell you, or rather, do not let us talk at all."
Raoul clenched his hands, and tried to assume the look and gait of a man
of courage, it is true, but of a man of courage on his way to the
torture. Montalais, glancing in every direction, walking along with an
easy swinging gait, and holding up her head pertly in the air, preceded
him to Madame's apartments, where he was at once introduced. "Well," he
thought, "this day will pass away without my learning anything. Guiche
showed too much consideration for my feelings; he had no doubt come to
an understanding with Madame, and both of them, by a friendly plot,
agreed to postpone the solution of the problem. Why have I not a
determined inveterate enemy--that serpent, De Wardes, for instance; that
he would bite is very likely: but I should not hesitate any more. To
hesitate, to doubt--better by far to die."
The next moment Raoul was in Madame's presence. Henrietta, more charming
than ever, was half lying, half reclining in her armchair, her little
feet upon an embroidered velvet cushion; she was playing with a little
kitten with long silky fur, which was biting her fingers and hanging by
the lace of her collar.
Madame seemed plunged in deep thought, so deep, indeed, that it required
both Montalais and Raoul's voice to disturb her from her reverie.
"Your highness sent for me?" repeated Raoul.
Madame shook her head, as if she were just awakening, and then said,
"Good-morning, Monsieur de Bragelonne; yes, I sent for you; so you have
returned from England?"
"Yes, madame, and am at your royal highness's commands."
"Thank you; leave us, Montalais;" and the latter immediately left the
room.
"You have a few minutes to give me, Monsieur de Bragelonne, have you
not?"
"My very life is at your royal highness's disposal," Raoul returned,
with respect, guessing that there was something serious in all these
outward courtesies of Madame; nor was he displeased, indeed, to observe
the seriousness of her manner, feeling persuaded that there was some
sort of affinity between Madame's sentiments and his own. In fact, every
one at court of any perception at all knew perfectly well the capricious
fancy and absurd despotism of the princess's singular character. Madame
had been flattered beyond all bounds by the king's attentions; she had
made herself talked about; she had inspired the queen with that mortal
jealousy which is the gnawing worm at the root of every woman's
happiness; Madame in a word, in her attempts to cure a wounded pride,
had found that her heart had become deeply and passionately attached. We
know what Madame had done to recall Raoul, who had been sent out of the
way by Louis XIV. Raoul did not know of her letter to Charles II.,
although D'Artagnan had guessed its contents. Who will undertake to
account for that seemingly inexplicable mixture of love and vanity, that
passionate tenderness of feeling, that prodigious duplicity of conduct?
No one can, indeed; not even the bad angel who kindles the love of
coquetry in the heart of woman. "Monsieur de Bragelonne," said the
princess, after a moment's pause, "have you returned satisfied?"
Bragelonne looked at Madame Henrietta, and seeing how pale she was, not
alone from what she was keeping back, but also from what she was burning
to say, said: "Satisfied! what is there for me to be satisfied or
dissatisfied about, madame?"
"But what are those things with which a man of your age and of your
appearance is usually either satisfied or dissatisfied?"
"How eager she is," thought Raoul, almost terrified; "what is it that
she is going to breathe into my heart?" and then, frightened at what she
might possibly be going to tell him, and wishing to put off the
opportunity of having everything explained which he had hitherto so
ardently wished for, yet had dreaded so much, he replied, "I left behind
me, madame, a dear friend in good health, and on my return I find him
very ill."
"You refer to M. de Guiche," replied Madame Henrietta, with the most
imperturbable self-possession; "I have heard he is a very dear friend of
yours."
"He is indeed, madame."
"Well, it is quite true he has been wounded; but he is better now. Oh!
M. de Guiche is not to be pitied," she said hurriedly; and then,
recovering herself, added, "But has he anything to complain of? Has he
complained of anything? Is there any cause of grief or sorrow that we
are not acquainted with?"
"I allude only to his wound, madame."
"So much the better, then, for, in other respects, M. de Guiche seems to
be very happy; he is always in very high spirits. I am sure that you,
Monsieur de Bragelonne, would far prefer to be, like him, wounded only
in the body ... for what, indeed, is such a wound, after all!"
Raoul started. "Alas!" he said to himself, "she is returning to it."
"What did you say?" she inquired.
"I did not say anything, madame."
"You did not say anything; you disapprove of my observation, then? you
are perfectly satisfied, I suppose?"
Raoul approached closer to her. "Madame," he said, "your royal highness
wishes to say something to me, and your instinctive kindness and
generosity of disposition induce you to be careful and considerate as to
your manner of conveying it. Will your royal highness throw this kind
forbearance aside? I am able to bear everything; and I am listening."
"Ah!" replied Henrietta, "what do you understand, then?"
"That which your royal highness wishes me to understand," said Raoul,
trembling, notwithstanding his command over himself, as he pronounced
these words.
"In point of fact," murmured the princess ... "it seems cruel, but since
I have begun--"
"Yes, madame, since your highness has deigned to begin, will you deign
to finish--"
Henrietta rose hurriedly, and walked a few paces up and down the room.
"What did M. de Guiche tell you?" she said, suddenly.
"Nothing, madame."
"Nothing! Did he say nothing? Ah! how well I recognize him in that."
"No doubt he wished to spare me."
"And that is what friends call friendship. But surely. Monsieur
d'Artagnan, whom you have just left, must have told you."
"No more than Guiche, madame."
Henrietta made a gesture full of impatience, as she said, "At least, you
know all that the court has known!"
"I know nothing at all, madame."
"Not the scene in the storm?"
"No, madame."
"Not the tete-à-tete in the forest?"
"No, madame."
"Nor the flight to Chaillot?"
Raoul, whose head drooped like flower which has been cut down by the
sickle, made an almost superhuman effort to smile, as he replied with
the greatest gentleness: "I have had the honor to tell your royal
highness that I am absolutely ignorant of everything, that I am a poor
unremembered outcast, who has this moment arrived from England. There
have been so many stormy waves between myself and those whom I left
behind me here, that the rumor of none of the circumstances your
highness refers to, has been able to reach me."
Henrietta was affected by his extreme pallor, his gentleness, and his
great courage. The principal feeling in her heart at that moment was an
eager desire to hear the nature of the remembrance which the poor lover
retained of her who had made him suffer so much. "Monsieur de
Bragelonne," she said, "that which your friends have refused to do, I
will do for you, whom I like and esteem very much. I will be your friend
on this occasion. You hold your head high, as a man of honor should do;
and I should regret that you should have to bow it down under ridicule,
and in a few days, it may be, under contempt."
"Ah!" exclaimed Raoul, perfectly livid. "It is as bad as that, then?"
"If you do not know," said the princess, "I see that you guess; you were
affianced, I believe, to Mademoiselle de la Valliere?"
"Yes, madame."
"By that right, then, you deserve to be warned about her, as some day or
another I shall be obliged to dismiss Mademoiselle de la Valliere from
my service--"
"Dismiss La Valliere!" cried Bragelonne.
"Of course. Do you suppose that I shall always be accessible to the
tears and protestations of the king. No, no; my house shall no longer be
made a convenience for such practices; but you tremble, you cannot
stand--"
"No, madame, no," said Bragelonne, making an effort over himself; "I
thought I should have died just now, that was all. Your royal highness
did me the honor to say that the king wept and implored you--"
"Yes, but in vain," returned the princess; who then related to Raoul the
scene that took place at Chaillot, and the king's despair on his return;
she told him of his indulgence to herself, and the terrible word with
which the outraged princess, the humiliated coquette, had dashed aside
the royal anger.
Raoul stood with his head bent down.
"What do you think of it all?" she said.
"The king loves her," he replied.
"But you seem to think she does not love him!"
"Alas, madame, I am thinking of the time when she loved me."
Henrietta was for a moment struck with admiration at this sublime
disbelief; and then, shrugging her shoulders, she said, "You do not
believe me, I see. How deeply you must love her, and you doubt if she
loves the king?"
"I do, until I have a proof of it. Forgive me, madame, but she has given
me her word; and her mind and heart are too upright to tell a
falsehood."
"You require a proof! Be it so. Come with me, then."