“Ah! I see you would never be able to endure being exiled a second time.”
“I, Monseigneur?”
“I will not carry you off with us, as I had first intended.”
“What, with you, Monseigneur?”
“Yes; if the idea should occur to me again of taking a dislike to the court.”
“Oh! do not let that make any difference, Monseigneur; I would follow Your Highness to the end of the world.”
“Clumsy fellow that you are!” said Manicamp, grumblingly, pushing his horse towards de Guiche, so as almost to unseat him, and then, as he passed close to him, as if he had lost command over the horse, he whispered, “For goodness’ sake, think what you are saying.”
“Well, it is agreed, then,” said the prince; “since you are so devoted to me, I shall take you with me.”
“Anywhere, Monseigneur,” replied de Guiche in a joyous tone, “whenever you like, and at once, too. Are you ready?”
And de Guiche, laughingly, gave his horse the rein, and galloped forward a few yards.
“One moment,” said the prince. “Let us go to the château first.”
“What for?”
“Why, to take my wife, of course.”
“What for?” asked de Guiche.
“Why, since I tell you that it is a project of conjugal affection, it is necessary I should take my wife with me.”
“In that case, Monseigneur,” replied the comte, “I am greatly concerned, but no de Guiche for you.”
“Bah!”
“Yes.—Why do you take Madame with you?”
“Because I begin to fancy I love her,” said the prince.
De Guiche turned slightly pale, but endeavored to preserve his seeming cheerfulness.
“If you love Madame, Monseigneur,” he said, “that ought to be quite enough for you, and you have no further need of your friends.”
“Not bad, not bad,” murmured Manicamp.
“There, your fear of Madame has begun again,” replied the prince.
“Why, Monseigneur, I have experienced that to my cost; a woman who was the cause of my being exiled!”
“What a revengeful disposition you have, de Guiche, how virulently you bear malice.”
“I should like the case to be your own, Monseigneur.”
“Decidedly, then, that was the reason why you danced so badly yesterday; you wished to revenge yourself, I suppose, by trying to make Madame make a mistake in her dancing; ah! that is very paltry, de Guiche, and I will tell Madame of it.”
“You may tell her whatever you please, Monseigneur, for Her Highness cannot hate me more than she does.”
“Nonsense, you are exaggerating; and this because merely of the fortnight’s sojourn in the country she imposed on you.”
“Monseigneur, a fortnight is a fortnight; and when the time is passed in getting sick and tired of everything, a fortnight is an eternity.”
“So that you will not forgive her?”
“Never!”
“Come, come, de Guiche, be a better disposed fellow than that. I wish to make your peace with her; you will find, in conversing with her, that she has no malice or unkindness in her nature, and that she is very talented.”
“Monseigneur—”
“You will see that she can receive her friends like a princess, and laugh like a citizen’s wife; you will see that, when she pleases, she can make the pleasant hours pass like minutes. Come, de Guiche, you must really make up your differences with my wife.”
Upon my word
, said Manicamp to himself, the prince is a husband whose wife’s name will bring him ill-luck, and King Candaules, of old, was a tiger beside His Royal Highness.
“At all events,” added the prince, “I am sure you will make it up with my wife: I guarantee you will do so. Only, I must show you the way now. There is nothing commonplace about her: it is not everyone who takes her fancy.”
“Monseigneur—”
“No resistance, de Guiche, or I shall get out of temper,” replied the prince.
“Well, since he will have it so,” murmured Manicamp, in Guiche’s ear, “do as he wants you to do.”
“Well, Monseigneur,” said the comte, “I obey.”
“And to begin,” resumed the prince, “there will be cards, this evening, in Madame’s apartment; you will dine with me, and I will take you there with me.”
“Oh! as for that, Monseigneur,” objected de Guiche, “you will allow me to object.”
“What, again! this is positive rebellion.”
“Madame received me too indifferently, yesterday, before the whole court.”
“Really!” said the prince, laughing.
“Nay, so much so, indeed, that she did not even answer me when I addressed her; it may be a good thing to have no self-respect at all, but to have too little is not enough, as the saying is.”
“Comte! after dinner, you will go to your own apartments and dress yourself, and then you will come to fetch me. I shall wait for you.”
“Since Your Highness absolutely commands it.”
“Positively.”
“He will not loose his hold,” said Manicamp; “these are the things to which husbands cling most obstinately. Ah! what a pity M. Molière could not have heard this man; he would have turned him into verse if he had.”
The prince and his court, chatting in this manner, returned to the coolest apartments of the château.
“By the by,” said de Guiche, as they were standing by the door, “I had a commission for Your Royal Highness.”
“Execute it, then.”
“M. de Bragelonne has, by the king’s order, set off for London, and he charged me with his respects for you; Monseigneur.”
“A pleasant journey to the vicomte, whom I like very much. Go and dress yourself, de Guiche, and come back for me. If you don’t come back—”
“What will happen, Monseigneur?”
“I will have you sent to the Bastille.”
“Well,” said de Guiche, laughing, “His Royal Highness, Monseigneur, is decidedly the counterpart of Her Royal Highness, Madame. Madame gets me sent into exile, because she does not care for me sufficiently; and Monseigneur gets me imprisoned, because he cares for me too much. I thank Monseigneur, and I thank Madame.”
“Come, come,” said the prince, “you are a delightful companion, and you know I cannot do without you. Return as soon as you can.”
“Very well; but I am in the humor to prove myself difficult to be pleased, in my turn, Monseigneur.”
“Bah!”
“So, I will not return to Your Royal
