The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [183]
Kitty was sitting with her face buried in her hands, weeping.
She heard d’Artagnan come in, but she did not raise her head. The young man went to her and took her hands, and then she burst into sobs.
As d’Artagnan had guessed, Milady, on receiving the letter, had, in the delirium of her joy, told her maid everything. Then, in reward for the way she had carried out her commission this time, she had given her a purse. Kitty, on returning to her room, had thrown the purse into a corner, where it lay wide open, spewing out three or four gold pieces on the rug.
At the sound of d’Artagnan’s voice, the poor girl raised her head. D’Artagnan himself was startled at the distortion of her face. She pressed her hands together with a look of supplication, but without daring to say a word.
Little sensitive as d’Artagnan’s heart was, he felt touched by this mute suffering; but he was too keen on his plans, and above all on this one, to change anything in the program he had laid out in advance. He thus left Kitty no hope of making him relent, only he presented his act to her as a simple matter of vengeance.
This vengeance, moreover, became the more easy in that Milady, no doubt to conceal her blushes from her lover, had told Kitty to put out all the lights in the apartment, and even in her own bedroom. Before daybreak, M. de Wardes was to leave, still in darkness.
A moment later, Milady could be heard going to her bedroom. D’Artagnan leaped for his wardrobe at once. He had barely ducked into it when the little bell rang.
Kitty went to her mistress’s room and did not leave the door open; but the partition was so thin that almost everything said between the two women could be heard.
Milady seemed drunk with joy. She made Kitty repeat the smallest details of the supposed interview between the soubrette and de Wardes, how he had received her letter, how he had responded, what had been the expression of his face, whether he had seemed truly amorous. And to all these questions, poor Kitty, forced to keep a good countenance, responded in a choking voice, of which her mistress did not even notice the sorrowful tone—so egotistical is happiness.
Finally, as the hour of her meeting with the count approached, Milady indeed had all the lights put out, and ordered Kitty to go back to her room and let de Wardes in as soon as he appeared.
Kitty did not have to wait long. The moment d’Artagnan saw through the keyhole of his wardrobe that the whole apartment was in darkness, he leaped from his hiding place, just as Kitty was closing the communicating door.
“What was that noise?” asked Milady.
“It is I,” said d’Artagnan in a low voice, “I, the comte de Wardes.”
“Oh, my God, my God!” murmured Kitty. “He couldn’t even wait for the hour he had fixed himself!”
“Well!” said Milady, in a trembling voice, “why doesn’t he come in? Count, Count,” she added, “you know very well I’m expecting you!”
At this summons, d’Artagnan gently moved Kitty aside and sprang into Milady’s bedroom.
If rage and pain can torture any soul, it is that of the lover who, under a name not his own, receives protestations of love addressed to his fortunate rival.
D’Artagnan was in a painful situation that he had not foreseen, jealousy gnawed at his heart, and he suffered almost as much as poor Kitty, who at that same moment was weeping in the neighboring room.
“Yes, Count,” said Milady in her gentlest voice, pressing his hand tenderly in hers, “yes, I am happy in the love which your glances and your words have expressed to me each time we’ve met. I love you, too. Oh, tomorrow, tomorrow I want some pledge from you which will prove that you think of me, and as you might forget me, take this.”
And she slipped a ring from her finger onto d’Artagnan’s.
D’Artagnan remembered having seen this ring on Milady’s hand: it was a magnificent sapphire surrounded by brilliants.
D’Artagnan’s first impulse was to give it back, but Milady added:
“No, no, keep this ring out of love for me. Besides, in accepting it,” she added