"Monsieur," said Raoul, "we have before us a beautiful spectacle!"
"How good D'Artagnan is!" interrupted. Athos, suddenly, "and what a rare good fortune it is to be supported during a whole life by such a friend as he is! That is what you have wanted, Raoul."
"A friend!" cried Raoul, "I have wanted a friend!"
"M. de Guiche is an agreeable companion," resumed the comte, coldly, "but I believe, in the times in which you live, men are more engaged in their own interests and their own pleasures than they were in our times. You have sought a secluded life; that is a great happiness, but you have lost your strength in it. We four, more weaned from these delicate abstractions which constitute your joy, we furnished much more resistance when misfortune presented itself."
"I have not interrupted you, monsieur, to tell you that I had a friend, and that that friend is M. Guiche. Certes, he is good and generous, and, moreover, he loves me. But I have lived under the guardianship of another friendship, monsieur, as precious and as strong as that of which you speak, since that is yours."
"I have not been a friend for you, Raoul," said Athos.
"Eh! monsieur, and in what respect not?"
"Because I have given you reason to think that life has but one face, because, sad and severe, alas! I have always cut off for you, without, God knows, wishing to do so, the joyous buds which incessantly spring from the tree of youth; so that at this moment I repent of not having made of you a more expansive, dissipated, animated man."
"I know why you say that, monsieur. No, it is not you who have made me what I am; it was love which took me at the time when children have only inclinations; it is the constancy natural to my character, which with other creatures is but a habit. I believed that I should always be as I was; I thought God had cast me in a path quite cleared, quite straight, bordered with fruits and flowers. I had watching over me your vigilance and your strength. I believed myself to be vigilant and strong. Nothing prepared me; I fell once, and that once deprived me of courage for the whole of my life. It is quite true that I wrecked myself. Oh, no, monsieur! you are nothing in my past but a happiness—you are nothing in my future but a hope! No, I have no reproach to make against life, such as you made it for me; I bless you, and I love you ardently."
"My dear Raoul, your words do me good. They prove to me that you will act a little for me in the time to come."