“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 am 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.
“Is there a procession to-day?” asked D’Artagnan of a passer-by.
“Monsieur, it is a hanging,” replied the man.
“What! a hanging at the Greve?” said D’Artagnan.
“Yes, monsieur.”
“The devil take the rogue who gets himself hung the day I want to go and take my rent!” cried D’Artagnan. “Raoul, did you ever see anybody hung?”
“Never, monsieur—thank God!”