“My friend,” said D’Artagnan, turning to the servant, “tell his eminence that in half an hour I shall be at his command.”
“It is very fortunate,” resumed the Gascon, when the valet had retired, “that he did not meet the other one.”
“Do you not think that they have sent for you, both for the same thing?”
“I do not think it, I am certain of it.”
“Quick, quick, D’Artagnan. Remember that the queen awaits you, and after the queen, the cardinal, and after the cardinal, myself.”
D’Artagnan summoned Anne of Austria’s servant and signified that he was ready to follow him into the queen’s presence.
The servant conducted him by the Rue des Petits Champs and turning to the left entered the little garden gate leading into the Rue Richelieu; then they gained the private staircase and D’Artagnan was ushered into the oratory. A certain emotion, for which he could not account, made the lieutenant’s heart beat: he had no longer the assurance of youth; experience had taught him the importance of past events. Formerly he would have approached the queen as a young man who bends before a woman; but now it was a different thing; he answered her summons as an humble soldier obeys an illustrious general.
The silence of the oratory was at last disturbed by the slight rustling of silk, and D’Artagnan started when he perceived the tapestry raised by a white hand, which, by its form, its color and its beauty he recognized as that royal hand which had one day been presented to him to kiss. The queen entered.
“It is you, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” she said, fixing a gaze full of melancholy interest on the countenance of the officer, “and I know you well. Look at me well in your turn. I am the queen; do you recognize me?”
“No, madame,” replied D’Artagnan.