“Oh! yes, yes,” replied D’Artagnan, coloring a little, “I am going to make an acquisition.”
“That is quite another thing. Then I change my formula. Instead of ‘Do not get yourself killed,’ I will say,—‘Do not get yourself robbed.’”
“My friend, I will inform you if I set eyes on any property that pleases me, and shall expect you will favor me with your opinion.”
“Yes, yes,” said Athos, too delicate to permit himself even the consolation of a smile. Raoul imitated the paternal reserve. But D’Artagnan thought it would appear too mysterious to leave his friends under a pretense, without even telling them the route he was about to take.
“I have chosen Le Mans,” said he to Athos. “It is a good country?”
“Excellent, my friend,” replied the count, without making him observe that Le Mans was in the same directions as La Touraine, and that by waiting two days, at most, he might travel with a friend. But D’Artagnan, more embarrassed than the count, dug, at every explanation, deeper into the mud, into which he sank by degrees. “I shall set out to-morrow at daybreak,” said he at last. “Till that time, will you come with me, Raoul?”
“Yes, monsieur le chevalier,” said the young man, “if monsieur le comte does not want me.”
“No, Raoul; I am to have an audience to-day of Monsieur, the king’s brother; that is all I have to do.”
Raoul asked Grimaud for his sword, which the old man brought him immediately. “Now then,” added D’Artagnan, opening his arms to Athos, “adieu, my dear friend!” Athos held him in a long embrace, and the musketeer, who knew his discretion so well, murmured in his ear—“An affair of state,” to which Athos only replied by a pressure of the hand, still more significant. They then separated. Raoul took the arm of his old friend, who led him along the Rue Saint-Honore. “I an conducting you to the abode of the god Plutus,” said D’Artagnan to the young man; “prepare yourself. The whole day you will witness the piling up of crowns. Heavens! how I am changed!”
“Oh! what numbers of people there are in the street!” said Raoul.