“Then I leave off.”
“You leave off?”
“Yes; my head becomes confused, and my ideas melancholy. I feel ennui overtaking me; I wish-”
“What?”
“I don’t know; but I do not like to give myself up to longing for things which I do not possess, when I am so happy with what I have.”
“You are afraid of death?” said Aramis, with a slight uneasiness.
“Yes,” said the young man, smiling.
Aramis felt the chill of that smile, and shuddered. “Oh, as you fear death, you know more than you admit!” he cried.
“And you,” returned the prisoner, “who bade me to ask to see you,- you, who when I did ask for you came here promising a world of confidence,- how is it that, nevertheless, it is you who are silent, and ‘t is I who speak? Since, then, we both wear masks, either let us both retain them or put them aside together.”
Aramis felt the force and justice of the remark, saying to himself, “This is no ordinary man.” “Are you ambitious?” said he suddenly to the prisoner, aloud, without preparing him for the alteration.
“What do you mean by ambition?” replied the youth.
“It is,” replied Aramis, “a feeling which prompts a man to desire more than he has.”
“I said that I was contented, Monsieur; but perhaps I deceive myself. I am ignorant of the nature of ambition; but it is not impossible I may have some. Come, open my mind; I ask nothing better.”
“An ambitious man,” said Aramis, “is one who covets what is beyond his station.”
“I covet nothing beyond my station,” said the young man, with an assurance of manner which yet again made the bishop of Vannes tremble.
Aramis was silent. But to look at the kindling eye, the knitted brow, and the reflective attitude of the captive, it was evident that he expected something more than silence. That silence Aramis now broke. “You lied the first time I saw you,” said he.
“Lied!” cried the young man, starting up on his couch, with such a tone in his voice and such lightning in his eyes that Aramis recoiled in spite of himself.
“I should say,” returned Aramis, bowing, “you concealed from me what you knew of your infancy.”
“A man’s secrets are his own, Monsieur,” retorted the prisoner, “and not at the mercy of the first chance-comer.”
“True,” said Aramis, bowing still lower than before, “‘t is true; pardon me, but to-day do I still occupy the place of a chance-comer? I beseech you to reply, Monseigneur.”
This title slightly disturbed the prisoner; but nevertheless he did not appear astonished that it was given to him. “I do not know you, Monsieur,” said he.
“Oh, if I but dared, I would take your hand and would kiss it!”
The young man seemed as if he were going to give Aramis his hand; but the light which beamed in his eyes faded away, and he coldly and distrustfully withdrew his hand. “Kiss the hand of a prisoner!” he said, shaking his head; “to what purpose?”
“Why did you tell me,” said Aramis, “that you were happy here? Why, that you aspired to nothing? Why, in a word, by thus speaking, do you prevent me from being frank in my turn?”
The same light shone a third time in the young man’s eyes, but died as before, without leading to anything.
“You distrust me,” said Aramis.
“And why say you so, Monsieur?”
“Oh, for a very simple reason! If you know what you ought to know, you ought to mistrust everybody.”
“Then be not astonished that I am mistrustful, since you suspect me of knowing what I know not.”
Aramis was struck with admiration at this energetic resistance. “Oh, Monseigneur, you drive me to despair!” said he, striking the arm-chair with his fist.
“And on my part I do not comprehend you, Monsieur.”
“Well, then, try to understand me.” The prisoner looked fixedly at Aramis. “Sometimes it seems to me,” said the latter, “that I have before me the man whom I seek, and then-”
“And then your man disappears,- is it not so?” said the prisoner, smiling. “So much the better.”