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“Twenty-five past nine!” cried M. de Tréville, looking at the clock. “But that’s impossible!”

“But you see, Monsieur,” said d’Artagnan, “there’s the proof.”

“Right enough,” said M. de Tréville. “I’d have thought it was later. Now, then, what do you want of me?”

Then d’Artagnan told M. de Tréville a long story about the queen. He disclosed to him the fears he had formed concerning Her Majesty; he told him what he had heard said about the cardinal’s plans with respect to Buckingham, and all that with a calm and self-assurance that took in M. de Tréville all the more in that he himself, as we have said, had noticed something new between the cardinal, the king, and the queen.

At the stroke of ten, d’Artagnan left M. de Tréville, who thanked him for his information, charged him to keep at heart his service to the king and queen, and went back to the reception room. But at the foot of the stairs, he remembered that he had forgotten his walking stick. He therefore hurried back upstairs, went into the office again, reset the clock to the right time with the touch of a finger, so that the next day no one would notice it had been tampered with, and, certain now that he had a witness to prove his alibi, went downstairs and soon found himself in the street.

XI

THE PLOT THICKENS

His visit to M. de Tréville over, d’Artagnan, lost in thought, took the longest way home.

What was d’Artagnan thinking about, if he wandered from his path like this, looking up at the stars in the sky, and sometimes sighing, sometimes smiling?

He was thinking of Mme Bonacieux. For an apprentice musketeer, the young woman was almost an amorous ideal. Pretty, mysterious, initiated into almost all the secrets of court, showing such a charming seriousness in her graceful features, she might also be suspected of not being indifferent, which is an irresistible attraction for novice lovers. What’s more, d’Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of those demons who had wanted to search her and ill-use her, and that important service had established between them one of those feelings of gratitude that can so easily take on a more tender character.

Dreams advance so quickly on the wings of imagination that d’Artagnan already saw himself approached by a messenger from the young woman, who hands him a note for a rendezvous, or a gold chain, or a diamond. We have said that young cavaliers received without shame from their king; let us add that, in this time of easy morals, they felt no more abashed with regard to their mistresses, and that the latter almost always left them precious and lasting souvenirs, as if trying to conquer the fragility of their feelings by the solidity of their gifts.

One made one’s way then by means of women, without blushing at it. Those who were merely beautiful gave their beauty, whence no doubt came the proverb that even the most beautiful girl in the world can only give what she has. Those who were rich gave a portion of their money as well, and one could cite a good number of heroes from that gallant age who would not have won their spurs first, nor their battles afterwards, without the more or less well-stuffed purse that their mistress tied to their saddlebow.53

D’Artagnan had nothing. Provincial hesitation—a thin polish, an ephemeral flower, the down on the peach—had evaporated in the wind of the hardly orthodox advice the three musketeers had given their friend. D’Artagnan, following the strange custom of the time, saw himself in Paris as if he was on campaign, and that no more nor less than in Flanders: the Spaniard there, woman here. Everywhere there were enemies to be fought and contributions to be imposed.

But, let it be said, for the moment d’Artagnan was moved by a nobler and more disinterested feeling. The mercer had told him he was rich; the young man had been able to divine that, with a ninny the likes of M. Bonacieux, it must be the woman who held the purse strings. But none of that had in any way influenced the feeling aroused by the sight of Mme Bonacieux,