He had just completed this monologue —­ which proves that in momentous circumstances nothing is more natural than the monologue —­ when the servant-maid, watching at the door, suddenly cried out: 

“Ah! see! here is madame returning with monsieur.”

D’Artagnan looked out and at the corner of Rue Montmartre saw the hostess coming along hanging to the arm of an enormous Swiss, who tiptoed in his walk with a magnificent air which pleasantly reminded him of his old friend Porthos.

“Is that monsieur?” said D’Artagnan to himself.  “Oh! oh! he has grown a good deal, it seems to me.”  And he sat down in the hall, choosing a conspicuous place.

The hostess, as she entered, saw D’Artagnan and uttered a little cry, whereupon D’Artagnan, judging that he had been recognized, rose, ran to her and embraced her tenderly.  The Swiss, with an air of stupefaction, looked at the hostess, who turned pale.

“Ah, it is you, monsieur!  What do you want of me?” she asked, in great distress.

“Is monsieur your cousin?  Is monsieur your brother?” said D’Artagnan, not in the slightest degree embarrassed in the role he was playing.  And without waiting for her reply he threw himself into the arms of the Helvetian, who received him with great coldness.

“Who is that man?” he asked.

The hostess replied only by gasps.

“Who is that Swiss?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Monsieur is going to marry me,” replied the hostess, between two gasps.

“Your husband, then, is at last dead?”

“How does that concern you?” replied the Swiss.

“It concerns me much,” said D’Artagnan, “since you cannot marry madame without my consent and since ——­ "

“And since?” asked the Swiss.

“And since —­ I do not give it,” said the musketeer.

The Swiss became as purple as a peony.  He wore his elegant uniform, D’Artagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the Swiss was six feet high, D’Artagnan was hardly more than five; the Swiss considered himself on his own ground and regarded D’Artagnan as an intruder.

“Will you go away from here?” demanded the Swiss, stamping violently, like a man who begins to be seriously angry.

“I?  By no means!” said D’Artagnan.

“Some one must go for help,” said a lad, who could not comprehend that this little man should make a stand against that other man, who was so large.

D’Artagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad by the ear and led him apart, with the injunction: 

“Stay you where you are and don’t you stir, or I will pull this ear off.  As for you, illustrious descendant of William Tell, you will straightway get together your clothes which are in my room and which annoy me, and go out quickly to another lodging.”

The Swiss began to laugh boisterously.  “I go out?” he said.  “And why?”

“Ah, very well!” said D’Artagnan; “I see that you understand French.  Come then, and take a turn with me and I will explain.”