“I beg your pardon,” said Athos.
“Oh! not at all, my friend,” replied the lieutenant, “I shall tell you—”
“No, don’t tell me anything, I beg you; orders are things so sacred, that to one’s brother, one’s father, the person charged with such orders should never open his mouth. Thus I, who speak to you, and love you more tenderly than brother, father, or all the world—”
“Except your Raoul?”
“I shall love Raoul still better when he shall be a man, and I shall have seen him develop himself in all the phases of his character and his actions—as I have seen you, my friend.”
“You said, then, that you had an order likewise, and that you would not communicate it to me.”
“Yes, my dear D’Artagnan.”
The Gascon sighed. “There was a time,” said he, “when you would have placed that order open upon the table, saying, ‘D’Artagnan, read this scrawl to Porthos, Aramis, and to me.’”
“That is true. Oh! that was the time of youth, confidence, the generous season when the blood commands, when it is warmed by feeling!”
“Well! Athos, will you allow me to tell you?”