Louise de la Valliere, Alexandre Dumas [smallest ebook reader TXT] 📗

on him one of those looks in which the whole soul seems to pass into the eyes, “prove to me, I say, that you intended to interrogate me at the very moment I sent for you.”

De Guiche gravely drew from his pocket the now crumpled note that he had written, and showed it to her.

“Sympathy,” she said.

“Yes,” said the comte, with an indescribable tenderness of tone, “sympathy. I have explained to you how and why I sought you; you, however, have yet to tell me, Madame, why you sent for me.”

“True,” replied the princess. She hesitated, and then suddenly exclaimed, “Those bracelets will drive me mad.”

“You expected the king would offer them to you,” replied De Guiche.

“Why not?”

“But before you, Madame, before you, his sister-in-law, was there not the queen herself to whom the king should have offered them?”

“Before La Valliere,” cried the princess, wounded to the quick, “could he not have presented them to me? Was there not the whole court, indeed, to choose from?”

“I assure you, Madame,” said the comte, respectfully, “that if any one heard you speak in this manner, if any one were to see how red your eyes are, and, Heaven forgive me, to see, too, that tear trembling on your eyelids, it would be said that your royal highness was jealous.”

“Jealous!” said the princess, haughtily, “jealous of La Valliere!”

She expected to see De Guiche yield beneath her scornful gesture and her proud tone; but he simply and boldly replied, “Jealous of La Valliere; yes, Madame.”

“Am I to suppose, monsieur,” she stammered out, “that your object is to insult me?”

“It is not possible, Madame,” replied the comte, slightly agitated, but resolved to master that fiery nature.

“Leave the room!” said the princess, thoroughly exasperated, De Guiche’s coolness and silent respect having made her completely lose her temper.

De Guiche fell back a step, bowed slowly, but with great respect, drew himself up, looking as white as his lace cuffs, and, in a voice slightly trembling, said, “It was hardly worth while to have hurried here to be subjected to this unmerited disgrace.” And he turned away with hasty steps.

He had scarcely gone half a dozen paces when Madame darted like a tigress after him, seized him by the cuff, and making him turn round again, said, trembling with passion as she did so, “The respect you pretend to have is more insulting than the insult itself. Insult me, if you please, but at least speak.”

“Madame,” said the comte, gently, as he drew his sword, “thrust this blade into my heart, rather than kill me by degrees.”

At the look he fixed upon her,—a look full of love, resolution, and despair, even,—she knew how readily the comte, so outwardly calm in appearance, would pass his sword through his own breast if she added another word. She tore the blade from his hands, and, pressing his arm with a feverish impatience, which might pass for tenderness, said, “Do not be too hard upon me, comte. You see how I am suffering, and yet you have no pity for me.”

Tears, the cries of this strange attack, stifled her voice. As soon as De Guiche saw her weep, he took her in his arms and carried her to an armchair; in another moment she would have been suffocated.

“Oh, why,” he murmured, as he knelt by her side, “why do you conceal your troubles from me? Do you love any one—tell me? It would kill me, I know, but not until I should have comforted, consoled, and served you even.”

“And do you love me to that extent?” she replied, completely conquered.

“I do indeed love you to that extent, Madame.”

She placed both her hands in his. “My heart is indeed another’s,” she murmured in so low a tone that her voice could hardly be heard; but he heard it, and said, “Is it the king you love?”

She gently shook her head, and her smile was like a clear bright streak in the clouds, through which after the tempest has passed one almost fancies Paradise is opening. “But,” she added, “there are other passions in a high-born heart. Love is poetry; but the real life of the heart is pride. Comte, I was born on a throne, I am proud and jealous of my rank. Why does the king gather such unworthy objects round him?”

“Once more, I repeat,” said the comte, “you are acting unjustly towards that poor girl, who will one day be my friend’s wife.”

“Are you simple enough to believe that, comte?”

“If I did not believe it,” he said, turning very pale, “Bragelonne should be informed of it to-morrow; indeed he should, if I thought that poor La Valliere had forgotten the vows she had exchanged with Raoul. But no, it would be cowardly to betray a woman’s secret; it would be criminal to disturb a friend’s peace of mind.”

“You think, then,” said the princess, with a wild burst of laughter, “that ignorance is happiness?”

“I believe it,” he replied.

“Prove it to me, then,” she said, hurriedly.

“It is easily done, Madame. It is reported through the whole court that the king loves you, and that you return his affection.”

“Well?” she said, breathing with difficulty.

“Well; admit for a moment that Raoul, my friend, had come and said to me, ‘Yes, the king loves Madame, and has made an impression upon her heart,’ I possibly should have slain Raoul.”

“It would have been necessary,” said the princess, with the obstinacy of a woman who feels herself not easily overcome, “for M. de Bragelonne to have had proofs before he ventured to speak to you in that manner.”

“Such, however, is the case,” replied De Guiche, with a deep sigh, “that, not having been warned, I have never examined into the matter seriously; and I now find that my ignorance has saved my life.”

“So, then, you drive selfishness and coldness to that extent,” said Madame, “that you would let this unhappy young man continue to love La Valliere?”

“I would, until La Valliere’s guilt were revealed.”

“But the bracelets?”

“Well, Madame, since you yourself expected to receive them from the king, what can I possibly say?”

The argument was a telling one, and the princess was overwhelmed by it, and from that moment her defeat was assured. But as her heart and mind were instinct with noble and generous feelings, she understood De Guiche’s extreme delicacy. She saw that in his heart he really suspected that the king was in love with La Valliere, and that he did not wish to resort to the