Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part one

“No, Monsieur. I sent him a challenge. If he accepts it, I will maintain it; if he does not take it up, I will leave it where it is.”

“And La Valliere?”

“You cannot, I know, have seriously thought that I should dream of revenging myself upon a woman?” replied Raoul, with a smile so sad that a tear started even to the eyes of his father, who had so many times in the course of his life been bowed beneath his own sorrows and those of others.

Athos held out his hand to Raoul, which the latter seized most eagerly.

“And so, Monsieur the Count, you are quite satisfied that the misfortune is without a remedy?” inquired the young man.

Athos shook his head. “Poor boy!” he murmured.

“You think that I still hope,” said Raoul, “and you pity me. Oh, it is indeed a horrible suffering for me to despise, as I ought to do, her whom I have loved so devotedly. If I but had some real cause of complaint against her, I should be happy, and should be able to forgive her.”

Athos looked at his son with a sorrowful air. The few words which Raoul had just pronounced seemed to have issued out of his own heart. At this moment the servant announced M. d’Artagnan. This name sounded very differently to the ears of Athos and of Raoul.

The musketeer entered the room with a vague smile upon his lips. Raoul paused. Athos walked towards his friend with an expression of face which did not escape Bragelonne. D’Artagnan answered Athos’s look by a simple movement of the eyelid; and then, advancing toward Raoul, whom he took by the hand, he said, addressing both father and son, “Well, you are trying to console the boy, it seems.”

“And you, kind and good as usual, are come to help me in my difficult task.”

As he said this, Athos pressed d’Artagnan’s hand between both his own. Raoul fancied he observed in this pressure something beyond the sense his mere words conveyed.

“Yes,” replied the musketeer, smoothing his mustache with the hand that Athos had left free,- “yes, I have come also.”

“You are most welcome, Chevalier; not for the consolation you bring with you, but on your own account. I am already consoled,” said Raoul; and he attempted to smile, but the effect was far more sad than any tears d’Artagnan had ever seen shed.

“That is all well and good, then,” said d’Artagnan.

“Only,” continued Raoul, “you have arrived just as the count was about to give me the details of his interview with the King. You will allow the count to continue?” added the young man, as with his eyes fixed on the musketeer he seemed to search the depths of his heart.

“His interview with the King?” said d’Artagnan, in a tone so natural and unassumed that there was no reason to doubt his astonishment. “You have seen the King then, Athos?”

Athos smiled as he said, “Yes, I have seen him.”

“Ah, indeed! you were ignorant, then, that the count had seen his Majesty?” inquired Raoul, half reassured.

“My faith, yes! entirely.”

“In that case I am less uneasy,” said Raoul.

“Uneasy- and about what?” inquired Athos.

“Forgive me, Monsieur,” said Raoul; “but knowing so well the regard and affection you have for me, I was afraid you might possibly have expressed somewhat plainly to his Majesty my own sufferings and your indignation, and that the King had consequently-”

“And that the King had consequently-” repeated d’Artagnan; “well, go on, finish what you were going to say.”

“I have now to ask you to forgive me, M. d’Artagnan,” said Raoul. “For a moment, and I cannot help confessing it, I trembled lest you had come here, not as M. d’Artagnan, but as captain of the Musketeers.”

“You are mad, my poor boy,” cried d’Artagnan, with a burst of laughter in which an exact observer might perhaps have desired a little more frankness.

“So much the better,” said Raoul.

“Yes, mad; and do you know what I would advise you to do?”

“Tell me, Monsieur; for the advice is sure to be good, as it comes from you.”

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