The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [192]
Despite Kitty’s entreaties, instead of going up at once to her chamber, he left the mansion. He did so for two reasons: first, he could thus avoid her reproof, recriminations and prayers; secondly, he was not sorry to read his own thoughts and, if possible, to fathom the thoughts of this woman.
That D’Artagnan loved Milady to the point of madness and that she loved him not at all was crystal clear. It required but an instant’s reflection to realize what he had best do. He should go home and write Milady a long letter confessing that he and de Vardes were, up to the present moment, one and the same person, and consequently that he could not undertake to kill de Vardes, short of suicide. On the other hand, a fierce lust for revenge spurred him on; he wished to possess this woman in his own name. The notion of such a vengeance appealed to him as too sweet to forgo.
He paced round the Place Royale five or six times, turning at every ten steps to look at the light shining through the blinds of Milady’s apartment. This time, he mused, she was not so anxious to return to her bedroom as she had been after their first tryst.
At length the light went out and with it the last irresolution in D’Artagnan’s heart disappeared. Recalling all the details of the first night with a pounding heart and a brain on fire, he returned to the mansion and rushed up to Kitty’s chamber.
The poor girl, pale as a ghost and trembling in all her limbs, sought to stop her lover. But Milady, listening for every sound, had heard D’Artagnan enter. She opened her door to him.
“Come in!” she said.
She was so incredibly brazen and so monstrously ruttish that D’Artagnan could scarcely believe his sight or his hearing. It was as if he were being drawn in some fantastic situation as occurs only in the world of dreams. Yet this did not prevent him from rushing up to Milady, drawn to her as inevitably as iron is drawn to a loadstone.
As the door closed behind them, Kitty darted toward it. Jealousy, rage, offended pride, in a word all the passions which dispute the heart of a woman in love, drove her to reveal the hoax. But she realized that she would be utterly lost if she admitted having assisted in such a scheme and, worse, that D’Artagnan would be lost to her forever. This last thought of love counseled her to make one last bitter sacrifice.
As for D’Artagnan, he had attained the sum of all his hopes; it was no longer for his rival’s sake that Milady showed him favor; she now seemed to prize him on his own account. Faintly, deep in his heart, a secret voice warned him that she was using him as the tool of her vengeance, to be caressed only until he had dealt the death she craved. But pride, self-conceit and folly silenced the feeble murmur of the voice of reason. Then, our Gascon, with the abundant self-confidence characteristic of him, began to compare himself with de Vardes and to wonder why after all he should not be loved for himself.
The sensations of the moment absorbed him entirely. Milady ceased to be the woman whose fatal intent had for an instant terrified him; now she was an ardent, passionate mistress, abandoning herself utterly to a conjunction in which she herself experienced raptures of delight.
When, two hours later, the transports of the two lovers were somewhat calmed, Milady, who had not the same motives for forgetfulness as D’Artagnan, was the first to come back to reality. Had he already planned exactly how he would bring about a duel with de Vardes on the morrow, she asked.
But D’Artagnan, whose thoughts were following quite another course, foolishly forgot himself and replied gallantly that it was too late at night to consider duels and sword-thrusts.
His cold reception of the only interests which occupied her mind frightened Milady and she began to question him more pressingly. D’Artagnan, who had never given this impossible duel a serious thought, attempted to change the conversation. But this proved impossible; Milady held him fast within the limits determined by her irresistible spirit and her iron will.
D’Artagnan fancied