The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [260]
With which Lord Winter passed his arm through Felton’s and led him out, still laughing at his joke.
“I will be a match for you yet!” Milady vowed through clenched teeth. “Of that you may be certain, you poor sanctimonious would-be monk, you wretched little mock-soldier with your uniform cut out of God knows what flyblown canonicals!”
“By the way,” Lord Winter added, looking back across the doorway, “pray do not suffer this check to take away your appetite. Taste that fowl and that fish; on my honor, they are not poisoned. I have an excellent cook and, as he is not my heir, I trust him completely and utterly. Do just as I do! Adieu then, dear sister, until your next swoon!”
It was all Milady could endure. Her hands grasped her armchair, she ground her teeth furiously, her eyes followed the door as it closed behind Felton and Lord Winter. The moment she was alone, a fresh fit of despair seized her. Glancing at the table, she saw a knife glittering up at her, darted toward it and took it up. But her disappointment was cruel indeed: the blade was round and of flexible silver.
A burst of laughter sounded on the other side of the door, which had not been properly closed and which now swung open again.
“Ha, ha, ha!” Lord Winter mocked. “Ha, ha, ha! You see, my dear Felton, you see what I told you? That knife was for you, my lad; she would have killed you. You see, one of her peculiarities is to rid herself in one way or another of anybody who stands in her way. If I had listened to you, that knife would have been pointed and of steel. That would have meant good-bye, Felton; she would have cut your throat and after that turned on the rest of us! See, John, see how well she handles a knife!”
Milady stood there, still holding the harmless weapon in her clenched fist; but at these last words, at this supreme insult, her hands, her strength and even her will faltered. The knife fell clattering down on the floor.
“You were right, My Lord,” Felton admitted in a tone of such profound disgust that Milady’s heart sank within her. “Ay, you were right and I was wrong.”
Once again they walked away. This time Milady listened more carefully until she could no longer hear their footsteps.
“I am lost!” Milady murmured. “Now I am in the power of men on whom I have no more influence than on statues of bronze or granite! They know me by heart and are steeled against all my artifices. But no! it shall not be! It is impossible that this should end as they have decreed.”
Fear and weakness could not dwell long in her wilful and passionate spirit; instinctively she clutched at hope. Sitting down at the table, she ate from several dishes, drank a little Spanish wine and felt all her resolution returning.
Before going to bed she pondered and analyzed the words, the steps, gestures and even the silences of her interlocutors. From this deep, skilful and meticulous study she concluded that Felton was the more vulnerable of her two persecutors. One expression especially recurred to her mind: “If I had listened to you,” Lord Winter had said to Felton. Felton must have spoken in her favor since Lord Winter had been unwilling to listen to him.
“Weak or strong,” Milady repeated, “that man has at least a spark of pity in his soul. I shall fan that spark into a flame that shall devour him. As for the other, he knows me, he fears me and he realizes what to expect if ever I escape from his hands. It is futile to attempt anything with him, but Felton—he is something else again! He is a young, ingenuous and pure young man; he appears to be virtuous. Him there are means of destroying!”
Milady sighed, went to bed and fell asleep with a smile on her lips. Anyone who had seen her thus would have said that here was a young girl dreaming of the crown of flowers she was to wear on her brow on the Feast Day.
LIII
CAPTIVITY: THE SECOND DAY
Milady dreamed that she at long last held D’Artagnan in her power. She was witnessing