“Chevalier! chevalier!” said Fouquet, giddy with amazement, “whither are you hurrying me?”
“Across the gulf into which you were about to fall,” replied the bishop of Vannes. “Take hold of my cloak, and throw fear aside.”
“Why did you not tell me that sooner, Aramis? There was a day when, with one million only, you could have saved me; whilst to-day—”
“Whilst to-day I can give you twenty,” said the prelate. “Such is the case, however—the reason is very simple. On the day you speak of, I had not the million which you had need of at my disposal, whilst now I can easily procure the twenty millions we require.”
“May Heaven hear you, and save me!”
Aramis resumed his usual smile, the expression of which was so singular. “Heaven never fails to hear me,” he said.
“I abandon myself to you unreservedly,” Fouquet murmured.
“No, no; I do not understand it in that manner. I am unreservedly devoted to you. Therefore, as you have the clearest, the most delicate, and the most ingenious mind of the two, you shall have entire control over the fete, even to the very smallest details. Only—”
“Only?” said Fouquet, as a man accustomed to understand and appreciate the value of a parenthesis.
“Well, then, leaving the entire invention of the details to you, I shall reserve to myself a general superintendence over the execution.”