<h2><SPAN name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052"></SPAN> Chapter LII. Two Jealousies.</h2>
<p>Lovers are tender towards everything that forms part of the daily life of the
object of their affection. 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.”</p>
<p>“How so?—Why?—Will you explain to me, my dear Aure?”</p>
<p>“Madame will explain everything to you. I am going to take you to her
apartments.</p>
<p>“<i>What!</i>”</p>
<p>“Silence! and throw away your dark 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.”</p>
<p>“At all events—” interrupted Raoul.</p>
<p>“I tell you, I warn you, that wherever people may be, I know not how,
Madame is sure to have eyes and ears open. I am not very desirous, you can
easily believe, of being dismissed or thrown in to the Bastile. Let us talk, I
tell you, or rather, do not let us talk at all.”</p>
<p>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 chamber.
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,
far, to die.”</p>
<p>The next moment Raoul was in Madame’s presence. Henrietta, more charming
than ever, was half lying, half reclining in her armchair, her small feet upon
an embroidered velvet cushion; she was playing with a kitten with long silky
fur, which was biting her fingers and hanging by the lace of her collar.</p>
<p>Madame seemed plunged in deep thought, so deep, indeed, that it required both
Montalais and Raoul’s voice to disturb her from her reverie.</p>
<p>“Your highness sent for me?” repeated Raoul.</p>
<p>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?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Madame, and am at your royal highness’s commands.”</p>
<p>“Thank you; leave us, Montalais,” and the latter immediately left
the room.</p>
<p>“You have a few minutes to give me, Monsieur de Bragelonne, have you
not?”</p>
<p>“My life is at your royal highness’s disposal,” Raoul
returned with respect, guessing that there was something serious in these
unusual courtesies; 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 attention; she had made herself talked
about; she had inspired the queen with that mortal jealousy which is the
stinging scorpion at the heel of every woman’s happiness; Madame, in a
word, in her attempts to cure a wounded pride, 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 a woman. “Monsieur de Bragelonne,” said
the princess, after a moment’s pause, “have you returned
satisfied?”</p>
<p>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?”</p>
<p>“But what are those things with which a man of your age, and of your
appearance, is usually either satisfied or dissatisfied?”</p>
<p>“How eager she is,” thought Raoul, almost terrified; “what
venom is it she is going to distil 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, Madame, a dear
friend in good health, and on my return I find him very ill.”</p>
<p>“You refer to M. de Guiche,” replied Madame Henrietta, with
imperturbable self-possession; “I <i>have</i> heard he is a very dear
friend of yours.”</p>
<p>“He is, indeed, Madame.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“I allude only to his wound, Madame.”</p>
<p>“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, in deed, is such a wound, after all!”</p>
<p>Raoul started. “Alas!” he said to himself, “she is returning
to it.”</p>
<p>“What did you say?” she inquired.</p>
<p>“I did not say anything Madame.”</p>
<p>“You did not say anything; you disapprove of my observation, then? you
are perfectly satisfied, I suppose?”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“Ah!” replied Henrietta, “what do you understand,
then?”</p>
<p>“That which your royal highness wishes me to understand,” said
Raoul, trembling, notwithstanding his command over himself, as he pronounced
these words.</p>
<p>“In point of fact,” murmured the princess... “it seems cruel,
but since I have begun—”</p>
<p>“Yes, Madame, once your highness has deigned to begin, will you
condescend to finish—”</p>
<p>Henrietta rose hurriedly and walked a few paces up and down her room.
“What did M. de Guiche tell you?” she said, suddenly.</p>
<p>“Nothing, Madame.”</p>
<p>“Nothing! Did he say nothing? Ah! how well I recognize him in
that.”</p>
<p>“No doubt he wished to spare me.”</p>
<p>“And that is what friends call friendship. But surely, M.
d’Artagnan, whom you have just left, must have told you.”</p>
<p>“No more than De Guiche, Madame.”</p>
<p>Henrietta made a gesture full of impatience, as she said, “At least, you
know all the court knows.”</p>
<p>“I know nothing at all, Madame.”</p>
<p>“Not the scene in the storm?”</p>
<p>“No, Madame.”</p>
<p>“Not the <i>tete-a-tete</i> in the forest?”</p>
<p>“No, Madame.”</p>
<p>“Nor the flight to Chaillot?”</p>
<p>Raoul, whose head dropped like a blossom cut down by the reaper, made an almost
superhuman effort to smile, as he replied with the greatest gentleness:
“I have had the honor of telling 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 rolled so many stormy waves between
myself and those I left behind me here, that the rumor of none of the
circumstances your highness refers to, has been able to reach me.”</p>
<p>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 the
woman 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; and I deeply regret that you may
have to bow before ridicule, and in a few days, it might be, contempt.”</p>
<p>“Ah!” exclaimed Raoul, perfectly livid. “It is as bad as
that, then?”</p>
<p>“If you do not know,” said the princess, “I see that you
guess; you were affianced, I believe, to Mademoiselle de la Valliere?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Madame.”</p>
<p>“By that right, 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—”</p>
<p>“Dismiss La Valliere!” cried Bragelonne.</p>
<p>“Of course. Do you suppose I shall always be amenable 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—”</p>
<p>“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—”</p>
<p>“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 quashed the
royal anger.</p>
<p>Raoul stood with his head bent down.</p>
<p>“What do you think of it all?” she said.</p>
<p>“The king loves her,” he replied.</p>
<p>“But you seem to think she does not love him!”</p>
<p>“Alas, Madame, I was thinking of the time when she loved
<i>me</i>.”</p>
<p>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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“You require a proof! Be it so. Come with me, then.”</p>
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