The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [167]
“Ha, things are warming up considerably!” D’Artagnan exclaimed. “It seems that both Milady and I are anxious about the health of the same person. Tell me, Planchet, how is our good Monsieur de Vardes? Apparently very much alive.”
“Indeed yes, Monsieur, that is as alive as can be expected, what with the wounds of four neat sword-thrusts. I fear the dear gentleman is still very weak thanks to your treatment, for he has lost buckets of blood. As I expected, Lubin did not recognize me. He told me our adventure from beginning to end.”
“Bravo, Planchet, you are the monarch of lackeys. Now to horse again and let us overtake that carriage.”
This did not take long; within a few minutes they sighted the carriage drawn up by the roadside, an elegantly dressed cavalier at the door. The conversation between Milady and the gentleman was so animated that D’Artagnan stopped on the far side of the carriage without being noticed by anyone but the pretty soubrette. Milady and the stranger were talking in English, a language D’Artagnan did not understand. But from the intonation and pitch of her voice, D’Artagnan easily perceived that the beautiful Englishwoman was very angry indeed. And she concluded her remarks with a gesture that left him in no uncertainty about the nature of her feelings, as she rapped her fan so forcefully on her knee that the delicate feminine weapon broke into a thousand pieces.
The cavalier laughed heartily which seemed still further to exasperate Milady. D’Artagnan, believing it was high time he intervene, drew up to the door on his side of the carriage and, doffing his hat respectfully, said:
“Madame, may I offer you my services? I notice this gentleman has incurred your displeasure. Speak but one word, Madame, and I will undertake to chastise him for his lack of courtesy.”
Milady turned toward him in great astonishment.
“Monsieur,” she replied in excellent French, “I should welcome your protection but for the fact that the person I am quarreling with is my brother.”
“Pray excuse me, then, Madame; you must realize I was ignorant of that.”
The stranger bent low over his horse’s head to look through the carriage window.
“What is this simpleton talking about?” he asked. “Why doesn’t he go about his business?”
D’Artagnan in turn leaned down to look through the carriage window from his side, and:
“Simpleton, yourself!” he declared. “I am staying here because such is my good pleasure.”
The cavalier spoke a few words in English to his sister.
“I am addressing you in French,” D’Artagnan remonstrated. “Pray do me the favor of replying in the same language. You may be Madame’s brother but you are not mine, thank God!”
It might be thought that Milady, timid as women generally are, would interfere at this point in order to prevent the quarrel from going too far. On the contrary, she threw herself back in the carriage and called coolly to the coachman:
“Home, Basque, at once!”
As the carriage drew away, the pretty soubrette, clearly impressed by D’Artagnan’s good looks, cast an anxious glance of farewell at him. The horses trotted off, leaving the two men face to face with no material obstacle between them.
The cavalier made a move as if to follow the carriage but D’Artagnan caught at his bridle and stopped him dead. For, angry as he was, he was further enraged on recognizing in the stranger the Englishman of Amiens who had won his horse outright from Athos and come perilously close to winning D’Artagnan’s diamond.
“Monsieur,” D’Artagnan cried, “you seem to be even more of a simpleton than I am: you have forgotten a previous quarrel that we have not yet settled.”
“So it is you, my friend,” the Englishman answered, recognizing our Gascon. “It looks as though you must always be playing at some game or other.”
“Indeed, yes. You may recall it is time I had my inning. I am eager to find out, Monsieur, whether you handle a sword as adroitly as you handle a dice box?”
“You can see perfectly well that I carry no