“A woman who sees a man perish, consumed by the fire she has kindled, and who does not allay that fire, is, in my opinion, a worthless woman.”
“What can it matter to you what I said?” returned the comte. “What am I compared to you, and why should you even trouble yourself to know whether I exist or not?”
“Monsieur de Guiche, both you and I are human beings, and, knowing you as I do, I do not wish you to risk your life; with you I will change my conduct and character. I will be, not frank, for I am always so, but truthful. I implore you, therefore, to love me no more, and to forget utterly that I have ever addressed a word or a glance towards you.”
De Guiche turned around, bending a look full of passionate devotion upon her. “You,” he said; “you excuse yourself; you implore me?”
“Certainly; since I have done evil, I ought to repair the evil I have done. And so, comte, this is what we will agree to. You will forgive my frivolity and my coquetry. Nay, do not interrupt me. I will forgive you for having said I was frivolous and a coquette, or something worse, perhaps; and you will renounce your idea of dying, and will preserve for your family, for the king, and for our sex, a cavalier whom everyone esteems, and whom many hold dear.” Madame pronounced this last word in such an accent of frankness, and even of tenderness, that poor de Guiche’s heart felt almost bursting.
“Oh! Madame, Madame!” he stammered out.
“Nay, listen further,” she continued. “When you shall have renounced all thought of me forever, from necessity in the first place, and, next, because you will yield to my entreaty, then you will judge me more favorably, and I am convinced you will replace this love—forgive the frivolity of the expression—by a sincere friendship, which you will be ready to offer me, and which, I promise you, shall be cordially accepted.”
De Guiche, his forehead bedewed with perspiration, a feeling of death in his heart, and a trembling agitation through his whole frame, bit his lip, stamped his foot on the ground, and, in a word, devoured the bitterness of his grief. “Madame,” he said, “what you offer is impossible, and I cannot accept such conditions.”
“What!” said Madame, “do you refuse my friendship, then?”
“No, no! I do not need your friendship, Madame. I prefer to die from love, than to live for friendship.”
“Comte!”
“Oh! Madame,” cried de Guiche, “the present is a moment for me, in which no other consideration and no other respect exist, than the consideration and respect of a man of honor towards the woman he worships. Drive me away, curse me, denounce me, you will be perfectly right. I have uttered complaints against you, but their bitterness has been owing to my passion for you; I have said I wish to die, and die I will. If I lived, you would forget me; but dead, you would never forget me, I am sure.”
Henrietta, who was standing buried in thought, and nearly as agitated as de Guiche himself, turned aside her head as but a minute before he had turned aside his. Then, after a moment’s pause, she said, “And you love me, then, very much?”
“Madly; madly enough to die from it, whether you drive me from you, or whether you listen to me still.”
“It is a hopeless case,” she said, in a playful manner; “a case which must be treated with soothing application. Give me your hand. It is as cold as ice.” De Guiche knelt down, and pressed to his lips, not one, but both of Madame’s hands.
“Love me, then,” said the princess, “since it cannot be otherwise.” And almost imperceptibly she pressed his fingers, raising him thus, partly in the manner of a queen, and partly as a fond and affectionate woman would have done. De Guiche trembled from head to foot, and Madame, who felt how passion coursed through every fiber of his being, knew that he indeed loved truly. “Give me your arm, comte,” she said, “and let us return.”
“Ah! Madame,” said the comte, trembling and bewildered; “you have discovered a third way of killing me.”
“But, happily, it is the slowest way, is it not?” she replied, as she led him towards the grove of trees they had so lately quitted.
121
Aramis’s Correspondence
When de Guiche’s affairs, which had been suddenly set to right without his having been able to guess the cause of their improvement, assumed the unexpected aspect we have seen, Raoul, in obedience to the request of the princess, had withdrawn in order not to interrupt an explanation, the results of which he was far from guessing; and he soon after joined the ladies of honor who were walking about in the flower-gardens. During this time, the Chevalier de Lorraine, who had returned to his own room, read de Wardes’s latter with surprise, for it informed him, by the hand of his valet, of the sword-thrust received at Calais, and of all the details of the adventure, and invited him to inform de Guiche and Monsieur, whatever there might be in the affair likely to be most disagreeable to both of them. De Wardes particularly endeavored to prove to the chevalier the violence of Madame’s affection for Buckingham, and he finished his letter by declaring that he thought this feeling was returned. The chevalier shrugged his shoulders at the last paragraph, and, in fact, de Wardes was out of date, as we have seen. De Wardes was still only at Buckingham’s affair. The chevalier threw the letter over his shoulder upon an adjoining table, and said in a disdainful tone, “It is really incredible; and yet poor de Wardes is not deficient in ability; but the truth is, it
