Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/196

184 "Well?"

"That is your affair; do as you think proper. I see you have an open hand, and an arm that can reach a great way."

"Adieu, adieu." And Aramis left, carrying with him the governor's blessings.

At the very time M. de Baisemeaux was showing Aramis the prisoners in the Bastile, a carriage drew up at Mme. de Bellière's door, and, at that still early hour, a young woman alighted, her head muffled in a silk hood. At the moment the servants announced Mme. Vanel to Mme. de Bellière, the latter was engaged, or rather, was absorbed, in reading a letter, which she hurriedly concealed. She had hardly finished her morning toilet, her woman being still in the next room. At the name — at the footsteps of Marguerite Vanel, Mme. de Bellière ran to meet her. She fancied she could detect in her friend's eye a brightness which was neither that of health nor of pleasure. Marguerite embraced her, pressed her hands, and hardly allowed her time to speak. "Dearest," she said, "are you forgetting me? Have you quite given yourself up to the pleasures of the court?"

"I have not even seen the marriage fétes."

"What are you doing with yourself, then?"

"I am getting ready to leave for Bellière."

"For Bellière?"

"Yes."

"You are becoming rustic in your tastes then; I delight to see you so disposed. But you are pale."

"No, I am perfectly well."

"So much the better; I was becoming uneasy about you. You do not know what I have been told."

"People say so many things."

"Yes, but this is very singular."

"How well you know how to excite curiosity, Marguerite."

"Well, I was afraid of vexing you."

"Never; you have yourself always admired me for my evenness of temper."

"Well, then, it is said, that — no, I shall never be able to tell you."