The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [163]
“Ah yes,” Porthos volunteered nonchalantly, “the lady is a duchess of my acquaintance and I have considerable difficulty in meeting her because of her husband’s jealousy. But today she sent me word that she was coming to this sorry church, buried in this vile quarter, just for the sake of seeing me a moment.”
“Monsieur Porthos, would you be so kind as to offer me your arm for five minutes? I would be happy to talk to you for a while.”
“With the greatest of pleasure, Madame!” Porthos said affably, winking joyously to himself, much as a gambler does as he mocks the dupe he is about to pluck. D’Artagnan, passing by in pursuit of Milady, beheld the triumphant gleam in the musketeer’s eye and hurried on.
“Well, well, well!” he mused, reasoning after the strangely facile morality of that gallant period, “there goes one musketeer who will probably raise his campaign equipment in short order!”
Yielding to the pressure of Madame Attorney’s arm as a skiff yields to the rudder, Porthos and his lady reached the cloister of Saint-Magloire, a little-frequented spot with a turnstile at each end. By day beggars sat there devouring their crusts or a few children played their simple games.
“Oh, Monsieur Porthos!” the lawyer’s wife gasped. Then she looked carefully about her to make certain that only the usual people were in the cloisters: “Oh, Monsieur Porthos, you certainly seem to be a great conqueror!”
“I, Madame?” Porthos swelled like a frog. “Why so?”
“What of the signs you made just now in church? What of the holy water? That lady must be a princess at least, what with her little Negro and her maidservant!”
“No, no, Madame, you exaggerate. She is merely a duchess.”
“What about that footman waiting at the door and the carriage with that coachman in full livery?”
Porthos had seen neither footman nor carriage but his lady, with all the curiosity of a jealous woman, had missed nothing. Porthos regretted that he had not immediately made the lady of the red cushion a princess.
“Ah, you are the pet of the most beautiful ladies of fashion, Monsieur Porthos!” she sighed.
“To be sure, with the physique Nature has conferred upon me, you may well imagine that I have a certain success in society.”
“Dear God, how quickly men forget!” Madame Attorney cried, raising her eyes to Heaven.
“No more quickly than women, I dare say,” Porthos countered. “Take my case, Madame: was I not your victim? There I lay, wounded, dying . . . the surgeon had given me up . . . there I suffered, I the scion of an illustrious family . . . I who had trusted in your friendship . . . almost dead of my wounds—and of hunger! . . . I in a mean inn at Chantilly . . . while you did not once deign to reply to the burning letters I addressed to you. . . .”
“But Monsieur Porthos—” The lawyer’s wife wrung her hands helplessly as she felt herself judged by the behavior of the greatest ladies of the period and irrevocably condemned. “But Monsieur Porthos—”
“For your sake I broke with the Baronne de—”
“I know—”
“For your sake I gave up the Comtesse de—”
“Monsieur Porthos, do not crush me.”
“The Duchess de—”
“Monsieur Porthos, pray be generous!”
“You are right, Madame. I will not finish.”
“You see, it is my husband who refuses to hear of my lending—”
“Madame Coquenard, kindly remember the first letter you wrote to me. For my part it remains graven upon my memory.”
The attorney’s wife groaned.
“Besides, the sum you wished to borrow was rather large—”
“Madame Coquenard, I gave you the preference! I need only have written to the Duchesse de—but no, I must not mention her name, for I am utterly incapable of compromising a woman! But this I do know: I had but to write one line to her and she would have sent me fifteen hundred.”
The lawyer’s wife began to weep softly.
“Monsieur Porthos, I assure you that you have punished me severely enough. I swear that if ever you are in such straits again, you have but to turn to me in all confidence.”
“Fie, Madame, fie!” Porthos said, as if disgusted. “Let us not talk of money, if you please, it is humiliating.