“And you—you would pass rather a sad quarter-hour with the Red Duke,” replied Aramis.
“Oh, the Red Duke! Bravo! Bravo! The Red Duke!” cried Porthos, clapping his hands and nodding his head. “The Red Duke is capital. I’ll circulate that saying, be assured, my dear fellow. Who says this Aramis is not a wit? What a misfortune it is you did not follow your first vocation; what a delicious abbé you would have made!”
“Oh, it’s only a temporary postponement,” replied Aramis; “I shall be one someday. You very well know, Porthos, that I continue to study theology for that purpose.”
“He will be one, as he says,” cried Porthos; “he will be one, sooner or later.”
“Sooner,” said Aramis.
“He only waits for one thing to determine him to resume his cassock, which hangs behind his uniform,” said another Musketeer.
“What is he waiting for?” asked another.
“Only till the queen has given an heir to the crown of France.”
“No jesting upon that subject, gentlemen,” said Porthos; “thank God the queen is still of an age to give one!”
“They say that Monsieur de Buckingham is in France,” replied Aramis, with a significant smile which gave to this sentence, apparently so simple, a tolerably scandalous meaning.