The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [116]
“What does this mean?” he asked the cardinal.
“Nothing,” replied the latter. “Only, if the queen has the pendants, which I doubt, count them, Sire, and if you find just ten, ask Her Majesty who could have stolen these two pendants from her.”
The king looked questioningly at the cardinal, but he had no time to ask him anything. A cry of admiration came from all mouths. If the king looked like the foremost gentleman of his kingdom, the queen was quite certainly the most beautiful woman of France.
It is true that her huntress’s outfit was wonderfully becoming to her. She had on a felt hat with blue feathers, a pearl gray velvet jacket fastened with diamond clasps, and a skirt of blue satin all embroidered in silver. On her left shoulder sparkled the pendants, held up by a bow of the same color as the feathers and the skirt.
The king trembled with joy and the cardinal with wrath. However, far away as they were from the queen, they could not count the pendants. The queen had them, but did she have ten or did she have twelve?
Just then the violins sounded the signal for the ballet. The king advanced towards Mme la Présidente, with whom he was to dance, and Monsieur with the queen. They took their places, and the ballet began.
The king danced facing the queen, and each time he passed close to her, he devoured the pendants with his gaze, but could not manage to count them. A cold sweat broke out on the cardinal’s brow.
The ballet lasted an hour; it had sixteen figures.
The ballet ended amidst the applause of the entire hall, and each one conducted his lady to her place; but the king profited from his privilege of leaving his partner where she was, and went briskly to the queen.
“I thank you, Madame,” he said to her, “for the deference you have shown to my desires, but I believe you are missing two pendants, and I have brought them for you.”
At those words, he held out to the queen the two pendants the cardinal had given him.
“What, Sire?” cried the young queen, feigning surprise. “You are giving me two more? But then I shall have fourteen!”
Indeed, the king counted, and the twelve pendants were there on Her Majesty’s shoulder.
The king summoned the cardinal.
“Well, what is the meaning of this, M. le cardinal?” the king asked in a severe tone.
“It means, Sire,” the cardinal replied, “that I wished to make Her Majesty accept these two pendants, and not daring to offer them to her myself, I adopted this method.”
“And I am all the more grateful to Your Eminence,” replied Anne d’Autriche, with a smile that showed she was not fooled by this ingenuous gallantry, “in that I am sure these two pendants cost you as dearly by themselves as the twelve others cost His Majesty.”
Then, having bowed to the king and the cardinal, the queen made her way back to the room where she had dressed and where she was to undress.
The attention we were obliged to pay at the beginning of this chapter to the illustrious personages we have introduced in it has diverted us for a moment from the one to whom Anne d’Autriche owed the unprecedented triumph she had just won over the cardinal, and who, abashed, ignored, lost in the crowd massed at one of the doorways, watched from there this scene comprehensible only to four persons: the king, the queen, the cardinal, and himself.
The queen had just gone back to her room, and d’Artagnan was preparing to leave, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He turned and saw a young woman who made a sign for him to follow her. This young woman’s face was covered by a black velvet half mask, but despite that precaution, which, moreover, had been taken rather for others than for him, he instantly recognized his usual guide, the light and witty Mme Bonacieux.
They had barely seen each other the evening before at Germain’s, where d’Artagnan had asked for her. The hurry the young woman had been in to bring the queen this excellent news of the fortunate return of her messenger had made it so that the two lovers barely exchanged a few words. D’Artagnan thus followed Mme Bonacieux, stirred by two feelings, love