The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [17]
“After all, baldrics are coming in to fashion,” said the musketeer. “It was wildly extravagant of me, but still they’re the fashion! Besides, a man must spend his inheritance somehow.”
“Come, Porthos, don’t try to tell us your baldric comes from the paternal coffers!” another musketeer piped up. “I know better.”
“What?”
“It came from the heavily-veiled lady I met you with two Sundays ago over by the Porte Saint-Honoré.”
“No, by my honor, I bought it myself!” the man designated as Porthos protested. “On my faith as a gentleman, I paid for it out of my own purse.”
“Yes,” said a bystander. “Just as I bought this new purse with the money my mistress put in my old one!”
“It’s true, though,” Porthos insisted. “The proof of it is that I paid twelve pistoles for it.” The general wonderment grew but the general doubt subsisted. “Didn’t I, Aramis?” he concluded, turning to still another musketeer.
The companion whose corroboration he invited offered a perfect contrast to Porthos. Aramis was a young man twenty-three years old at most with a delicate and ingenuous countenance . . . black gentle eyes . . . cheeks rosy and downy as an autumn peach . . . and tenuous mustaches that marked a perfectly straight line over his upper lip. . . . He seemed mortally afraid to lower his hands lest their veins swell up; he would pinch his earlobes from time to time to preserve their smooth, roseate transparency. Usually he spoke little and always slowly; he bowed frequently and laughed noiselessly, baring beautiful white teeth which he seemed to care for as attentively as he cared for the rest of his person. At his friend’s appeal, he nodded affirmatively.
Another musketeer changed the subject, addressing no one in particular.
“What do you think of the Chalais incident?” he inquired. “His esquire is telling the strangest tale!”
“And what does the esquire say?” Porthos asked pompously.
“He says he was in Brussels and there he met Rochefort, the âme damnée of the Cardinal. And guess in what circumstances?”
“Well?”
“Rochefort was disguised as a Capuchin friar, damn his soul! Thanks to his costume he was able to trick Monsieur de Laigues, fool that he is!”
“De Laigues is a fool, certainly,” Porthos conceded. “But is this news reliable?”
“I had it from Aramis.”
“You did?”
“Why yes, Porthos, I told you all about it yesterday. Let’s drop the subject!”
“Drop the subject?” Porthos thundered. “That’s your opinion!” He drew a deep breath. “Drop the subject, indeed! A plague on you, you draw your conclusions too quickly! What! The Cardinal sets a spy upon a gentleman? The Cardinal has this gentleman’s letters stolen from him by a traitor, a brigand, a gallows bird? With the help of this scoundrel and thanks to this correspondence, the Cardinal has the head of Monsieur de Chalais severed skilfully from his shoulders? And you say ‘Drop the subject!’
“And under what pretext does the Cardinal execute Chalais? Under the stupid pretext that Chalais plotted to kill the King and marry off Monsieur, the King’s brother, to our Queen. No one knew a word about this intrigue. Yesterday you unraveled it to our general satisfaction. And now, while we are still gaping at the news, you say: ‘Let’s drop the subject!’”
“Very well, then,” Aramis agreed. “Since you wish it, let us discuss the matter.”
“Were I the esquire of poor Monsieur de Chalais,” Porthos blustered, “I would give that criminal Rochefort a pretty hard time of it for a minute or two.”
“Yes, I know!” Aramis countered suavely. “And you would get a pretty hard time of it yourself from the Red Duke!”
“The Red Duke! Bravo, bravo! The Red Duke!” Porthos cried, clapping his hands and nodding approval. “The Red Duke! What a capital coiner of mots you are, my dear Aramis. I shall make it my business to put that epithet in circulation all over the city, you may be sure! What a wit this lad Aramis is! What a pity you did not follow your early vocation! What a delightful abbé you would have made!