"Oh, yes, madame, I can a.s.sure you of that."
"Really?" said the marquise, in a melancholy tone.
"You sigh!" said Fouquet.
"What mysteries! what precautions!" said the marquise, with a slight bitterness of expression; "and how evident it is that you fear the least suspicion of your amours to escape."
"Would you prefer their being made public?"
"Oh, no; you act like a delicate man," said the marquise, smiling.
"Come, dear marquise, punish me not with reproaches, I implore you."
"Reproaches! Have I a right to make you any?"
"No, unfortunately, no; but tell me, you, who during a year I have loved without return or hope--"
"You are mistaken--without hope it is true, but not without return."
"What! for me, of my love! there is but one proof, and that proof I still want."
"I am here to bring it, monsieur."
Fouquet wished to clasp her in his arms, but she disengaged herself with a gesture.
"You persist in deceiving yourself, monsieur, and will never accept of me the only thing I am willing to give you--devotion."
"Ah, then, you do not love me? Devotion is but a virtue, love is a pa.s.sion."
"Listen to me, I implore you: I should not have come hither without a serious motive: you are well a.s.sured of that, are you not?"
"The motive is of very little consequence, so that you are but here--so that I see you--so that I speak to you!"
"You are right; the princ.i.p.al thing is that I am here without any one having seen me, and that I can speak to you."--Fouquet sank on his knees before her. "Speak! speak, madame!" said he, "I listen to you."
The marquise looked at Fouquet, on his knees at her feet, and there was in the looks of the woman a strange mixture of love and melancholy.
"Oh!" at length murmured she, "would that I were she who has the right of seeing you every minute, of speaking to you every instant! would that I were she who might watch over you, she who would have no need of mysterious springs to summon and cause to appear, like a sylph, the man she loves, to look at him for an hour, and then see him disappear in the darkness of a mystery, still more strange at his going out than at his coming in. Oh! that would be to live like a happy woman!"
"Do you happen, marquise," said Fouquet, smiling, "to be speaking of my wife?"
"Yes, certainly, of her I spoke."
"Well, you need not envy her lot, marquise; of all the women with whom I have had any relations, Madame Fouquet is the one I see the least of, and who has the least intercourse with me."
"At least, monsieur, she is not reduced to place, as I have done, her hand upon the ornament of a gla.s.s to call you to her; at least you do not reply to her by the mysterious, alarming sound of a bell, the spring of which comes from I don"t know where; at least you have not forbidden her to endeavor to discover the secret of these communications under pain of breaking off forever your connections with her, as you have forbidden all who come here before me, and who will come after me."
"Dear marquise, how unjust you are, and how little do you know what you are doing in thus exclaiming against mystery; it is with mystery alone we can love without trouble; it is with love without trouble alone that we can be happy. But let us return to ourselves, to that devotion of which you were speaking, or rather let me labor under a pleasing delusion, and believe this devotion is love."
"Just now," repeated the marquise, pa.s.sing over her eyes a hand that might have been a model for the graceful contours of antiquity; "just now I was prepared to speak, my ideas were clear and bold; now I am quite confused, quite troubled; I fear I bring you bad news."
"If it is to that bad news I owe your presence, marquise, welcome be even that bad news! or rather, marquise, since you allow that I am not quite indifferent to you, let me hear nothing of the bad news, but speak of yourself."
"No, no, on the contrary, demand it of me; require me to tell it to you instantly, and not to allow myself to be turned aside by any feeling whatever. Fouquet, my friend! it is of immense importance."
"You astonish me, marquise; I will even say you almost frighten me. You, so serious, so collected; you who know the world we live in so well. Is it, then, important?"
"Oh! very important."
"In the first place, how did you come here?"
"You shall know that presently; but first to something of more consequence."
"Speak, marquise, speak! I implore you, have pity on my impatience."
"Do you know that Colbert is made intendant of the finances?"
"Bah! Colbert, little Colbert."
"Yes, Colbert, little Colbert."
"Mazarin"s factotum?"
"The same."
"Well! what do you see so terrific in that, dear marquise? little Colbert is intendant; that is astonishing I confess, but is not terrible."
"Do you think the king has given, without pressing motive, such a place to one you call a little cuistre?"
"In the first place, is it positively true that the king has given it to him?"
"It is so said."
"Ay, but who says so?"
"Everybody."
"Everybody, that"s n.o.body; mention some one likely to be well informed who says so."
"Madame Vanel."
"Ah! now you begin to frighten me in earnest," said Fouquet, laughing; "if any one is well informed, or ought to be well informed, it is the person you name."
"Do not speak ill of poor Marguerite, Monsieur Fouquet, for she still loves you."
"Bah! indeed? That is scarcely credible. I thought little Colbert, as you said just now, had pa.s.sed over that love, and left the impression upon it of a spot of ink or a stain of grease."
"Fouquet! Fouquet! Is this the way you always treat the poor creatures you desert?"