“Long live the queen!” cried De Gondy; but the cries which replied to his were poor and few, and perhaps he had but uttered it to make Anne of Austria sensible of her weakness.
“And now that you have obtained what you want, go,” said she, “Monsieur de Gondy.”
“Whenever her majesty has need of me,” replied the coadjutor, bowing, “her majesty knows I am at her command.”
“Ah, cursed priest!” cried Anne, when he had retired, stretching out her arm to the scarcely closed door, “one day I will make you drink the dregs of the atrocious gall you have poured out on me to-day.”
Mazarin wished to approach her. “Leave me!” she exclaimed; “you are not a man!” and she went out of the room.
“It is you who are not a woman,” muttered Mazarin.
Then, after a moment of reverie, he remembered where he had left D’Artagnan and Porthos and that they must have overheard everything. He knit his brows and went direct to the tapestry, which he pushed aside. The closet was empty.
At the queen’s last word, D’Artagnan had dragged Porthos into the gallery. Thither Mazarin went in his turn and found the two friends walking up and down.
“Why did you leave the closet, Monsieur d’Artagnan?” asked the cardinal.
“Because,” replied D’Artagnan, “the queen desired every one to leave and I thought that this command was intended for us as well as for the rest.”