“What will you do with him, madame?”
“What will I do with him? Be easy, Kitty, there is something between that man and me that he is quite ignorant of: he nearly made me lose my credit with his Eminence. Oh, I will be revenged!”
“I believed that Madame loved him.”
“I love him? I detest him! An idiot, who held the life of Lord de Winter in his hands and did not kill him, by which I missed three hundred thousand livres’ income.”
“That’s true,” said Kitty; “your son was the only heir of his uncle, and until his majority you would have had the enjoyment of his fortune.”
D’Artagnan shuddered to the marrow at hearing this suave creature reproach him, with that sharp voice which she took such pains to conceal in conversation, for not having killed a man whom he had seen load her with kindnesses.
“For all this,” continued Milady, “I should long ago have revenged myself on him if, and I don’t know why, the cardinal had not requested me to conciliate him.”
“Oh, yes; but Madame has not conciliated that little woman he was so fond of.”
“What, the mercer’s wife of the Rue des Fossoyeurs? Has he not already forgotten she ever existed? Fine vengeance that, on my faith!”
A cold sweat broke from D’Artagnan’s brow. Why, this woman was a monster! He resumed his listening, but unfortunately the toilet was finished.