The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [169]
The Englishman then turned back again and recounted their combat without omitting a single detail. Milady listened with the greatest attention; yet one could easily see, despite the effort she made to hide her impressions, that this story was not at all pleasing to her. The blood rose to her face, and her little foot tapped impatiently under her dress.
Lord de Winter perceived nothing. When he had finished, he went over to a table where a bottle of Spanish wine and some glasses had been served on a tray. He filled two glasses and made a sign inviting d’Artagnan to drink.
D’Artagnan knew it was highly offensive to an Englishman to refuse to exchange toasts with him. He therefore went over to the table and took the second glass. However, he had not lost sight of Milady, and in the mirror caught the change that had just come over her face. Now that she thought she was no longer being looked at, a feeling resembling ferocity animated her physiognomy. She bit her handkerchief with her beautiful teeth.
That pretty little soubrette, whom d’Artagnan had already noticed, came in then. She spoke a few words in English to Lord de Winter, who at once asked d’Artagnan’s permission to leave, excusing himself by the urgency of the matter that called him away, and entrusting his sister with obtaining his pardon.
D’Artagnan shook hands with Lord de Winter and went back to Milady. With a surprising mobility, the woman’s face had resumed its gracious expression, only some little red spots scattered over her handkerchief indicated that she had bitten her lips till they bled.
Those lips were magnificent, the color of coral.
The conversation took a lively turn. Milady seemed to be completely recovered. She told him that Lord de Winter was only her brother-in-law, not her brother: she had married a younger son of the family, who had left her a widow with a child. That child was Lord de Winter’s sole heir, if Lord de Winter never married. All this made visible to d’Artagnan a veil that enveloped something, but he could as yet make out nothing behind that veil.
Moreover, after half an hour of conversation, d’Artagnan was convinced that Milady was his compatriot: she spoke French with a purity and elegance that left no doubt in that regard.
D’Artagnan produced a flood of gallant remarks and protests of devotion. To all the platitudes that escaped our Gascon, Milady smiled benevolently. It came time to retire. D’Artagnan said good-bye to Milady and left the salon the happiest of men.
On the stairs he ran into the pretty soubrette, who brushed softly against him in passing, and, blushing to the roots of her hair, begged his pardon for having touched him, in a voice so sweet that the pardon was granted at once.
D’Artagnan went back the next day and was given an even better reception than the evening before. Lord de Winter was not there, and it was Milady who this time did him all the honors of the evening. She seemed to take a great interest in him, asked him where he was from, who his friends were, and if he had not sometimes thought of attaching himself to the service of M. le cardinal.
D’Artagnan, who, as we know, was extremely prudent for a lad of twenty, then remembered his suspicions of Milady. He praised His Eminence highly to her, told her that he would unfailingly have entered the cardinal’s guards instead of the king’s guards, if he had known M. de Cavois, for example, instead of M. de Tréville.
Milady changed the subject without any affectation, and asked d’Artagnan in the most casual way in the world if he had ever been to England.
D’Artagnan replied that he had been sent there by M. de Tréville to arrange for a remount of horses, and that he had even brought back four as a sample.
In the course of the conversation, Milady pressed her lips two or three times: she was dealing with a Gascon who played a close game.
D’Artagnan left at the same hour as the evening