"You must speak more clearly still."
"What am I to say, then?"
"And so you have nothing very particular to tell me?"
"No!" said Louise, in astonishment.
"Very good; and so all you have to ask me is my advice respecting M. Raoul?"
"Nothing else."
"It is a very delicate subject," replied Montalais.
"No, it is nothing of the kind. Ought I to marry him in order to keep the promise I made, or ought I to continue to listen to the king?"
"You have really placed me in a very difficult position," said Montalais, smiling; "you ask me if you ought to marry Raoul, whose friend I am, and whom I shall mortally offend in giving my opinion against him; and then, you ask me if you should cease to listen to the king, whose subject I am, and whom I should also offend if I were to advise you in a particular way. Ah! Louise, you seem to hold a difficult position at a very cheap rate."
"You have not understood me, Aure," said La Valliere, wounded by the slightly mocking tone of her companion; "if I were to marry M. de Bragelonne, I should be far from bestowing on him the happiness he deserves; but, for the same reason, if I listen to the king he would become the possessor of one indifferently good in very many respects I admit, but one on whom his affection confers an appearance of value. What, I ask you, then, is to tell me some means of disengaging myself honorably either from the one or from the other; or rather, I ask you, from which side you think I can free myself most honorably."