Porthos stopped him, and then said, with great gravity, “Monsieur, this is the first of M. de Bragelonne’s complaints against you. If he makes a complaint, it is because he feels himself insulted.”
Saint-Aignan began to beat his foot impatiently on the ground. “This looks like a spurious quarrel,” he said.
“No one can possibly have a spurious quarrel with the Vicomte de Bragelonne,” returned Porthos; “but, at all events, you have nothing to add on the subject of your changing your apartments, I suppose?”
“Nothing. And what is the next point?”
“Ah, the next! You will observe, Monsieur, that the one I have already mentioned is a most serious injury, to which you have given no answer, or rather, have answered very indifferently. Is it possible, Monsieur, that you have changed your lodgings? M. de Bragelonne feels insulted at your having done so, and you do not attempt to excuse yourself.”
“What!” cried Saint-Aignan, who was getting annoyed at the perfect coolness of his visitor—“what! am I to consult M. de Bragelonne whether I am to move or not? You can hardly be serious, Monsieur.”
“I am. And it is absolutely necessary, Monsieur; but under any circumstances, you will admit that it is nothing in comparison with the second ground of complaint.”
“Well, what is that?”
Porthos assumed a very solemn expression as he said: “How about the trapdoor, Monsieur?”
Saint-Aignan turned exceedingly pale. He pushed back his chair so abruptly, that Porthos, simple as he was, perceived that the blow had told. “The trapdoor,” murmured Saint-Aignan.
“Yes, Monsieur, explain that if you can,” said Porthos, shaking his head.
Saint-Aignan held down his head, as he murmured: “I have been betrayed, everything is known!”
“Everything,” replied Porthos, who knew nothing.
“You see me perfectly overwhelmed,” pursued Saint-Aignan, “overwhelmed to a degree that I hardly know what I am about.”
“A guilty conscience, Monsieur. Your affair is a bad one, and when the public learns all about it, it will judge—”
“Oh, Monsieur!” exclaimed the count, hurriedly, “such a secret ought not to be known even by one’s confessor.”
“That we will think about,” said Porthos; “the secret will not go far, in fact.”
“Surely, Monsieur,” returned Saint-Aignan, “since M. de Bragelonne has penetrated the secret, he must be aware of the danger he as well as others run the risk of incurring.”
“M. de Bragelonne runs no danger, Monsieur, nor does he fear any either, as you, if it please Heaven, will find out very soon.”
This fellow is a perfect madman
, thought Saint-Aignan. What, in Heaven’s name, does he want?
He then said aloud: “Come, Monsieur, let us hush up this affair.”
“You forget the portrait,” said Porthos, in a voice of thunder, which made the comte’s blood freeze in his veins.
As the portrait in question was La Vallière’s portrait, and no mistake could any longer exist on the subject, Saint-Aignan’s eyes were completely opened. “Ah!” he exclaimed—“ah! Monsieur, I remember now that M. de Bragelonne was engaged to be married to her.”
Porthos assumed an imposing air, all the majesty of ignorance, in fact, as he said: “It matters nothing whatever to me, nor to yourself, indeed, whether or not my friend was, as you say, engaged to be married. I am even astonished that you should have made use of so indiscreet a remark. It may possibly do your cause harm, Monsieur.”
“Monsieur,” replied Saint-Aignan, “you are the incarnation of intelligence, delicacy, and loyalty of feeling united. I see the whole matter now clearly enough.”
“So much the better,” said Porthos.
“And,” pursued Saint-Aignan, “you have made me comprehend it in the most ingenious and the most delicate manner possible. I beg you to accept my best thanks.” Porthos drew himself up, unable to resist the flattery of the remark. “Only, now that I know everything, permit me to explain—”
Porthos shook his head, as a man who does not wish to hear, but Saint-Aignan continued: “I am in despair, I assure you, at all that has happened; but how would you have acted in my place? Come, between ourselves, tell me what you would have done?”
Porthos drew himself up as he answered: “There is now no question at all of what I should have done, young man; you have been made acquainted with the three causes of complaint against you, I believe?”
“As for the first, my change of rooms, and I now address myself to you as a man of honor and of great intelligence, could I, when the desire of so august a personage was so urgently expressed that I should move, ought I to have disobeyed?”
Porthos was about to speak, but Saint-Aignan did not give him time to answer. “Ah! my frankness, I see, convinces you,” he said, interpreting the movement according to his own fancy. “You feel that I am right.”
Porthos did not reply, and so Saint-Aignan continued: “I pass by that unfortunate trapdoor,” he said, placing his hand on Porthos’s arm, “that trapdoor, the occasion and means of so much unhappiness, and which was constructed for—you know what. Well, then, in plain truth, do you suppose that it was I who, of my own accord, in such a place, too, had that trapdoor made?—Oh, no!—you do not believe it; and here, again, you feel, you guess, you understand the influence of a will superior to my own. You can conceive the infatuation, the blind, irresistible passion which has been at work. But, thank Heaven! I am fortunate in speaking to a man who has so much sensitiveness of feeling; and if it were not so, indeed, what an amount of misery and scandal would fall upon her, poor girl! and upon him—whom I will not name.”
Porthos, confused and bewildered by the eloquence and gestures of Saint-Aignan, made a thousand efforts to stem this torrent of words, of which, by the by, he did not understand a single one; he remained upright and motionless on his seat, and that was all he could do. Saint-Aignan continued, and gave a new inflection to his voice, and an
