“I will not fail.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” continued the queen, “I know your disinterestedness too well to speak of my own gratitude at such a moment, but I swear to you that I shall not forget this second service as I forgot the first.”
“Your majesty is free to forget or to remember, as it pleases you; and I know not what you mean,” said D’Artagnan, bowing.
“Go, sir,” said the queen, with her most bewitching smile, “go and return at midnight.”
And D’Artagnan retired, but as he passed out he glanced at the curtain through which the queen had entered and at the bottom of the tapestry he remarked the tip of a velvet slipper.
“Good,” thought he; “Mazarin has been listening to discover whether I betrayed him. In truth, that Italian puppet does not deserve the services of an honest man.”
D’Artagnan was not less exact to his appointment and at half-past nine o’clock he entered the ante-room.
He found the cardinal dressed as an officer, and he looked very well in that costume, which, as we have already said, he wore elegantly; only he was very pale and trembled slightly.
“Quite alone?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord.”