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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Vicomte De Bragelonne 359 at Prostate Health
back again, even were it to cost you a million. Come, is not that
your opinion?"
"Yes; but still, my dear bishop, I believe you are exaggerating the
position of affairs."
"Blind, how blind you are!" murmured Aramis.
"La Valliere," returned Fouquet, "whom we assume to be a politician of
the greatest ability, is simply nothing more than a coquette, who hopes
that I shall pay my court to her, because I have already done so, and
who, now that she has received a confirmation of the kings regard,
hopes to keep me in leading strings with the letter. It is natural
enough!"
Aramis shook his head.
"Is not that your opinion?" said Fouquet.
"She is not a coquette," he replied.
"Allow me to tell you--"
"Oh! I am well enough acquainted with women who are coquettes," said
Aramis.
"My dear friend!"
"It is a long time ago since I finished my studies, you mean. But women
do not change."
"True; but men change, and you at the present day are far more
suspicious than you formerly were." And then, beginning to laugh, he
added, "Come, if La Valliere is willing to love me only to the extent of
a third and the king two-thirds, do you think the condition acceptable?"
Aramis rose impatiently. "La Valliere," he said, "has never loved, and
will never love any one but the king."
"At all events," said Fouquet, "what would you do?"
"Ask me rather what I would have done?"
"Well, what would you have done?"
"In the first place, I should not have allowed that man to go."
"Toby!"
"Yes; Toby is a traitor. Nay, I am sure of it, and I would not have let
him go until he had told me the truth."
"There is still time. I will recall him, and do you question him in your
turn."
"Agreed."
"But I assure you it is quite useless. He has been with me for the last
twenty years, and has never made the slightest mistake, and yet," added
Fouquet, laughing, "it has been easy enough."
"Still, call him back. This morning I fancy I saw that face in earnest
conversation with one of M. Colberts men."
"Where was that?"
"Opposite the stables."
"Bah! all my people are at daggers drawn with that fellow."
"I saw him, I tell you, and his face, which I ought not to have
recognized when he entered just now, struck me in a disagreeable
manner."
"Why did you not say something, then, while he was here?"
"Because it is only at this very minute that my memory is clear upon the
subject."
"Really," said Fouquet, "you alarm me." And he again rang the bell.
"Provided that it is not already too late," said Aramis.
Fouquet once more rang impatiently. The valet usually in attendance
appeared. "Toby!" said Fouquet, "send Toby." The valet again shut the
door.
"You leave me at perfect liberty, I suppose?"
"Entirely so."
"I may employ all means, then, to ascertain the truth."
"All."
"Intimidation, even?"
"I constitute you public prosecutor in my place."
They waited ten minutes longer, but uselessly, and Fouquet, thoroughly
out of patience, again rang loudly. "Toby!" he exclaimed.
"Monseigneur," said the valet, "they are looking for him."
"He cannot be far distant, I have not given him any commission to
execute."
"I will go and see, monseigneur," replied the valet, as he closed the
door. Aramis, during this interval, walked impatiently but silently up
and down the cabinet. Again they waited another ten minutes. Fouquet
rang in a manner to awaken the very dead. The valet again presented
himself, trembling in a way to induce a belief that he was the bearer of
bad news.
"Monseigneur is mistaken," he said, before even Fouquet could
interrogate him; "you must have given Toby some commission, for he has
been to the stables and taken your lordships swiftest horse, and
saddled it himself."
"Well?"
"And he has gone off."
"Gone!" exclaimed Fouquet. "Let him be pursued, let him be captured."
"Nay, nay," said Aramis, taking him by the hand, "be calm, the evil is
done now."
"The evil is done, you say?"
"No doubt; I was sure of it. And now, let us give no cause for
suspicion; we must calculate the result of the blow, and ward it off, if
possible."
"After all," said Fouquet, "the evil is not great."
"You think so," said Aramis.
"Of course. Surely a man is allowed to write a love-letter to a woman."
"A man, certainly; a subject, no; especially, too, when the woman in
question is one with whom the king is in love."
"But the king was not in love with La Valliere a week ago! he was not in
love with
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