At last, as the time for the interview with the count drew near, milady had all the lights extinguished, and dismissed Kitty with an injunction to introduce De Wardes the moment he arrived.
Kitty was not kept waiting long. Scarcely had D’Artagnan seen that the whole apartment was in darkness, when he sprang from his hiding-place just as Kitty was closing the door.
“What is that noise?” asked milady.
“It is I, the Comte de Wardes,” replied D’Artagnan in a whisper.
“Well,” said milady in a trembling voice, “why do you not come in? Count, count!” added she, “you well know I am waiting for you.”
At this appeal D’Artagnan pushed Kitty gently aside and darted into the chamber.
“Yes, count,” said milady, in her sweetest voice, and pressing his hand tenderly in hers—“yes, I am happy in the love which your looks and words have expressed to me each time we have met. I love you also. To-morrow, to-morrow, I wish some pledge from you to prove to me that you think of me. And lest you forget me, take this!”
She took a ring from her finger and put on D’Artagnan’s.
D’Artagnan remembered seeing that ring on milady’s hand. It was a magnificent sapphire encircled by brilliants.
At that moment he felt ready to reveal everything. He opened his mouth to tell milady who he was, and with what revengeful purpose he had come, when she added,
“Poor dear angel, whom that monster of a Gascon came so near killing!”
The monster was himself!
“Do you suffer still from your wounds?” continued she.
“Yes, a great deal,” said D’Artagnan, hardly knowing what to answer.
“Be assured,” murmured she, “I will avenge you, and cruelly.”
D’Artagnan needed some time to recover from this short dialogue. But all the ideas of vengeance he had brought had vanished completely. This woman exercised over him an unaccountable fascination: he hated her and adored her at the same moment.
But one o’clock had just struck, and they had to separate. D’Artagnan at the moment of leaving milady felt only a keen regret at departing, and in the passionate farewell they mutually bade each other a new interview was agreed upon for the following week. Poor Kitty hoped she might say some words to D’Artagnan when he came into her room; but milady herself guided him through the darkness, and left him only on the staircase.
The next morning D’Artagnan hastened to Athos’s room. He had started on such a strange adventure that he wished to ask his advice. He told him everything. Athos frowned more than once. “Your milady,” said he, “appears to me an infamous creature, but none the less you did wrong in deceiving her. Now you have, in one way or another, a terrible enemy on your hands.”
While talking to him Athos was gazing earnestly at the sapphire surrounded with diamonds which had replaced on D’Artagnan’s finger the queen’s ring, now carefully kept in a jewel-case.
“You are looking at my ring?” said the Gascon, proud of showing off such a rich gift before his friend.
“Yes,” said Athos; “it reminds me of a family jewel.”
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” said D’Artagnan.
“Magnificent!” replied Athos. “I did not think there existed two sapphires of such fine water. Did you exchange it for your diamond?”
“No,” said D’Artagnan; “it is a gift from my beautiful Englishwoman, or rather from my beautiful Frenchwoman, for though I never have asked her, I am convinced she was born in France.”
“This ring comes from milady!” cried Athos in a tone which revealed great emotion.
“From herself. She gave it to me last night.”
“Show me your ring, I beg of you,” said Athos.
“Here it is,” replied D’Artagnan, drawing it from his finger.
Athos examined it and grew very pale. Then he tried it on the ring-finger of his left hand. It fitted his finger as if it had been made for it. A shadow of anger and vengeance passed over the nobleman’s brow, usually so calm.
“It is impossible it can be she,” said he. “How could that ring be in Milady Clarick’s possession? And yet it is very difficult to find such an exact resemblance between two jewels.”
“Do you know that ring?” asked D’Artagnan.
“I thought I did,” said Athos; “but no doubt I was mistaken.”
And he gave it back to D’Artagnan, without ceasing, however, to eye it.
“Come, D’Artagnan,” said he after a moment, “take that ring off your finger, or turn the stone inside. It brings up to me such cruel memories that I could not keep cool enough to talk with you. Didn’t you come to ask advice of me? Didn’t you tell me you were in doubt what to do? But stop! let me take that sapphire again. The one I mentioned had one of its facets scratched in consequence of an accident.”
D’Artagnan took the ring again from his finger and gave it to Athos.
Athos shuddered. “Ha!” said he; “look, isn’t it strange?” And he showed D’Artagnan the scratches he remembered should be there.
“But from whom did you get this sapphire, Athos?”
“From my mother. As I tell you, it is an old family jewel, which never was to leave the family.”
“And you—sold it?” asked D’Artagnan hesitatingly.
“No,” replied Athos, with a singular smile; “I gave it away in a night of love, as it was given to you.”
D’Artagnan became thoughtful in his turn. He seemed to see in milady’s soul abysses the depths of which were full of darkness and mystery. He took back the ring, but put it in his pocket and not on his finger.
On reaching home D’Artagnan found Kitty waiting for him. A month of fever would not have changed the poor girl more than that night of sleeplessness and grief.
She was sent by her mistress to the false De Wardes. Her mistress was mad with love, intoxicated with joy. She wished to know when her lover would meet her again. And poor Kitty, pale and trembling, awaited D’Artagnan’s reply.
As his reply he took a pen and wrote the following letter:
“Do not depend upon me, madame, for the next meeting. Since my convalescence I have so many affairs of this kind on my hands that I am compelled to take them in a certain order. When your turn comes, I shall have the honour to inform you of it. I kiss your hands.
“Comte de Wardes.”
D’Artagnan handed the open letter to Kitty, who at first was unable to comprehend it, but who became almost wild with joy on reading it a second time. She could scarcely believe her happiness. She ran back to the Place Royale as fast as her feet could carry her.
Milady opened the letter with eagerness equal to Kitty’s in bringing it. But at the first words she read she became livid. She crushed the paper in her hand, and turning with flashing eyes on Kitty,
‘What is this letter?” cried she.
“The answer to yours, madame,” replied Kitty, all in a tremble.
“Impossible!” cried milady. “It is impossible that a gentleman could have written such a letter to a woman.”
She ground her teeth; she became ashen pale. She tried to take a step toward the window for air, but she could only stretch out her arms; her legs failed her, and she sank into an armchair.
Chapter 31 - Dream of Vengeance
That evening milady gave orders that when M. d’Artagnan came as usual, he should be immediately admitted. But he did not come.
The next day Kitty went to see the young man again, and related to him all that had passed the evening before. D’Artagnan smiled. Milady’s jealous anger was his revenge.
That evening milady was still more impatient than on the preceding one. She renewed the order relative to the Gascon; but, as before, she expected him in vain.
The next morning, when Kitty presented herself at D’Artagnan’s, she was no longer joyous and alert, as she had been on the two preceding days, but, on the contrary, melancholy as death.
D’Artagnan asked the poor girl what was the matter; but her only reply was to draw a letter from her pocket and give it to him.
This letter was in milady’s handwriting, only this time it was addressed to D’Artagnan, and not to M. de Wardes.
He opened it and read as follows:
“Dear Monsieur D’Artagnan,—It is wrong thus to neglect your friends, particularly when you are about to leave them for such a long time. My brother-in-law and myself expected you yesterday and the day before, but in vain. Will it be the same this evening?
“Your very grateful
“Lady Clarick.”
“It’s very simple,” said D’Artagnan; “I was expecting this letter. My credit rises by the Comte de Wardes’s fall.”
Instinct caused poor Kitty to guess a part of what was going to happen. D’Artagnan reassured her as well as he could, and promised to remain insensible to milady’s seductions. He desired Kitty to tell her mistress that he was most grateful for her kindnesses, and that he would be obedient to her orders. But he dare not write, for fear of not being able sufficiently to disguise his writing to deceive such experienced eyes as milady’s.
As nine o’clock was striking, D’Artagnan was at the Place Royale.
Milady assumed the most friendly air possible, and conversed with more than her usual brilliancy. At the same time the fever, which for an instant had left her, returned to give lustre to her eyes, colour to her cheeks, and vermilion to her lips. D’Artagnan was again in the presence of the Circe who had before surrounded him with her enchantment. His love, which he believed to be extinct, but which was only asleep, awoke again in his heart. Milady smiled, and D’Artagnan felt that he could go to perdition for that smile.
There was a moment when he felt something like remorse.
By degrees milady became more communicative. She asked D’Artagnan if he had a mistress.
“Alas!” said D’Artagnan, with the most sentimental air he could assume, “can you be cruel enough to put such a question to me— to me who, from the moment I saw you, have only breathed and sighed by reason of you and for you!”
Milady smiled with a strange smile.
“Then you do love me?” said she.
“Have I any need to tell you so? Have you not perceived it?”
“Yes; but you know the prouder hearts are, the more difficult they are to be won.”
“Oh, difficulties do not frighten me,” said D’Artagnan. “I shrink before nothing but impossibilities.”
“Nothing is impossible,” replied milady, “to true love.”
“Nothing, madame?”
“Nothing,” repeated milady.
D’Artagnan impetuously drew his seat nearer to milady’s.
“Well, now,” she said, “let us see what you should do to prove this love of which you speak.”
“All that could be required of me. Order; I am ready.”
Milady remained thoughtful and apparently undecided for a moment; then, as if appearing to have formed a resolution,
“I have an enemy,” said she.
“You, madame!” said D’Artagnan, affecting surprise; “is it possible? Heavens! good and beautiful as you are!”
“A mortal enemy.”
“Really?”
“An enemy who has insulted me so cruelly that between him and me it is war to the death. May I count on you as my ally?”
D’Artagnan at once perceived what the vindictive creature was aiming at.
“You may, madame,” said he, with emphasis. “My arm and my life are yours, as my love is.”
“But,” said milady, “how shall I repay such a service? I know what lovers are: they are men who will not do anything for nothing.”
“You know the only reply that I desire,” said D’Artagnan—“the only one worthy of you and of me!”
And he drew her gently to him.
She scarcely resisted.
“Selfish man!” cried she, smiling.
“Ah!” cried D’Artagnan, really carried away by the passion this woman had the power to kindle in his heart—“ah! because my happiness appears so incredible to me, and because I am always afraid of seeing it fly away from me like a dream, I am anxious to make a reality of it.”
“Well, deserve this pretended happiness, then!”
“I am at your disposal,” said D’Artagnan.
“I love your devotion,” said milady.
“Alas! is that all you love in me?” asked D’Artagnan.
“I love you also—you!” said she, taking his hand.
And the warm pressure made D’Artagnan tremble, as if the fever consuming milady communicated itself to him by the touch.
“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 avoid the kiss which he pressed upon her lips, only she did not return it.
Her lips were cold; it appeared to D’Artagnan that he had kissed a statue.
He was not the less intoxicated with joy, electrified by love. He almost believed in milady’s tenderness; he almost believed in De Wardes’s crime. If De Wardes had at that moment been at hand, he would have killed him.
Milady seized her opportunity.
“His name is—” said she, in her turn.
“De Wardes; I know,” cried D’Artagnan.
“And how do you know?” asked milady, seizing both his hands, and trying to read with her eyes to the bottom of his heart.
D’Artagnan felt that he had gone too far, and that he had made a mistake.
“Tell me! tell me! tell me, I say!” repeated milady; “how do you know?”
“How do I know?” said D’Artagnan.
“Yes.”
“I know, because yesterday M. de Wardes, in a parlour where I was, displayed a ring which he said you gave him.”
“Scoundrel!” 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 ‘scoundrel,’ ” replied D’Artagnan, giving himself the airs of Don Japhet of Armenia.
“Thanks, my brave friend!” cried milady. “And when shall I be avenged?”
“To-morrow—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.
“To-morrow,” said he, “you will be avenged.”
She rang the bell. Kitty appeared.
“Go out this way,” said she, opening a small private door, “and come back at eleven o’clock; we will then finish our conversation. Kitty will conduct you to my chamber.”
The poor girl thought she should faint at hearing these words.
“Well, miss, what are you doing, standing there like a statue? Come, show the chevalier the way; and this evening at eleven o’clock—you understand!”
“It seems her appointments are all made for eleven o’clock,” thought D’Artagnan. “That’s a fixed habit.”
Milady held out her hand to him, and he kissed it tenderly.
“There, now,” said he, as he withdrew, scarcely heeding Kitty’s reproaches—“there, I must not play the fool. This woman is certainly very bad. I must be on my guard.”
Chapter 32 - Milady’s Secret
D’Artagnan left the h?tel instead of going up at once to Kitty’s chamber, as she tried to persuade him to do, and for this he had two reasons: the first, because in this way he avoided reproaches, recriminations, and entreaties; the second, because he was not sorry to have an opportunity to read his own thoughts, and, if possible, to fathom this woman’s.
