“Sire,” said Athos modestly, “I was not alone. My companions and I did, under the circumstances, our duty as gentlemen, and that was all. Your majesty was about to do me the honor to relate——”
“That is true. I had the protection,—pardon my hesitation, count, but, for a Stuart, you, who understand everything, you will comprehend that the word is hard to pronounce;—I had, I say, the protection of my cousin the stadtholder of Holland; but without the intervention, or at least without the authorization of France, the stadtholder would not take the initiative. I came, then, to ask this authorization of the king of France, who has refused me.”
“The king has refused you, sire!”
“Oh, not he; all justice must be rendered to my younger brother Louis; but Monsieur de Mazarin——”
Athos bit his lips.
“You perhaps think I should have expected this refusal?” said the king, who had noticed the movement.
“That was, in truth, my thought, sire,” replied Athos, respectfully, “I know that Italian of old.”
“Then I determined to come to the test, and know at once the last word of my destiny. I told my brother Louis, that, not to compromise either France or Holland, I would tempt fortune myself in person, as I had already done, with two hundred gentlemen, if he would give them to me, and a million, if he would lend it me.”
“Well, sire?”
“Well, monsieur, I am suffering at this moment something strange, and that is, the satisfaction of despair. There is in certain souls,—and I have just discovered that mine is of the number,—a real satisfaction in the assurance that all is lost, and the time is come to yield.”