“Not despair! you are right to say so!” replied D’Artagnan.

“Oh! my dear, very dear friend,” resumed Athos, whom the almost imperceptible bitterness of D’Artagnan had not escaped.  “Pardon me! can I have unintentionally wounded my best comrade?”

“You are mad, Athos, and to prove it, I shall conduct you to the palace; to the very gate, I mean; the walk will do me good.”

“You shall go in with me, my friend; I will speak to his majesty.”

“No, no!” replied D’Artagnan, with true pride, free from all mixture; “if there is anything worse than begging yourself, it is making others beg for you.  Come, let us go, my friend, the walk will be charming; on the way I shall show you the house of M. Monk, who has detained me with him.  A beautiful house, by my faith.  Being a general in England is better than being a marechal in France, please to know.”

Athos allowed himself to be led along, quite saddened by D’Artagnan’s forced attempts at gayety.  The whole city was in a state of joy; the two friends were jostled at every moment by enthusiasts who required them, in their intoxication, to cry out, “Long live good King Charles!” D’Artagnan replied by a grunt, and Athos by a smile.  They arrived thus in front of Monk’s house, before which, as we have said, they had to pass on their way to St. James’s.

Athos and D’Artagnan said but little on the road, for the simple reason that they would have had so many things to talk about if they had spoken.  Athos thought that by speaking he should evince satisfaction, and that might wound D’Artagnan.  The latter feared that in speaking he should allow some little bitterness to steal into his words which would render his company unpleasant to his friend.  It was a singular emulation of silence between contentment and ill-humor.  D’Artagnan gave way first to that itching at the tip of his tongue which he so habitually experienced.

“Do you remember, Athos,” said he, “the passage of the ’Memoires de D’Aubigny,’ in which that devoted servant, a Gascon like myself, poor as myself, and, I was going to add, brave as myself, relates instances of the meanness of Henry IV.?  My father always told me, I remember, that D’Aubigny was a liar.  But, nevertheless, examine how all the princes, the issue of the great Henry, keep up the character of the race.”

“Nonsense!” said Athos,” the kings of France misers?  You are mad, my friend.”

“Oh! you are so perfect yourself, you never agree to the faults of others.  But, in reality, Henry IV. was covetous, Louis XIII., his son, was so likewise; we know something of that, don’t we?  Gaston carried this vice to exaggeration, and has made himself, in this respect, hated by all who surround him.  Henriette, poor woman, might well be avaricious, she who did not eat every day, and could not warm herself every winter; and that is an example she has given to her son Charles II., grandson of the great Henry IV., who is as covetous as his mother and his grandfather.  See if I have well traced the genealogy of the misers?”