“Ah! yes; I know, my lord, and I expected nothing less from your partiality; so that if it were only the abduction in itself, Mordioux! that would be nothing; but there are — "

“What?”

“The circumstances of that abduction.”

“What circumstances?”

“Oh! you know very well what I mean, my lord.”

“No, curse me if I do.”

“There is — in truth, it is difficult to speak it.”

“There is?”

“Well, there is that devil of a box!”

Monk colored visibly.  “Well, I have forgotten it.”

“Deal box,” continued D’Artagnan, “with holes for the nose and mouth.  In truth, my lord, all the rest was well; but the box, the box! that was really a coarse joke.”  Monk fidgeted about in his chair.  “And, notwithstanding my having done that,” resumed D’Artagnan, “I, a soldier of fortune, it was quite simple, because by the side of that action, a little inconsiderate I admit, which I committed, but which the gravity of the case may excuse, I am circumspect and reserved.”

“Oh!” said Monk, “believe me, I know you well, Monsieur d’Artagnan, and I appreciate you.”

D’Artagnan never took his eyes off Monk; studying all which passed in the mind of the general, as he prosecuted his idea.  “But it does not concern me,” resumed he.

“Well, then, who does it concern?” said Monk, who began to grow a little impatient.

“It relates to the king, who will never restrain his tongue.”

“Well! and suppose he should say all he knows?” said Monk, with a degree of hesitation.

“My lord,” replied D’Artagnan, “do not dissemble, I implore you, with a man who speaks so frankly as I do.  You have a right to feel your susceptibility excited, however benignant it may be.  What, the devil! it is not the place for a man like you, a man who plays with crowns and scepters as a Bohemian plays with his balls; it is not the place of a serious man, I said, to be shut up in a box like some freak of natural history; for you must understand it would make all your enemies ready to burst with laughter, and you are so great, so noble, so generous, that you must have many enemies.  This secret is enough to set half the human race laughing, if you were represented in that box.  It is not decent to have the second personage in the kingdom laughed at.”

Monk was quite out of countenance at the idea of seeing himself represented in this box.  Ridicule, as D’Artagnan had judiciously foreseen, acted upon him in a manner which neither the chances of war, the aspirations of ambition, nor the fear of death had been able to do.

“Good,” thought the Gascon, “he is frightened:  I am safe.”

“Oh! as to the king,” said Monk, “fear nothing, my dear Monsieur d’Artagnan; the king will not jest with Monk, I assure you!”

The momentary flash of his eye was noticed by D’Artagnan.  Monk lowered his tone immediately:  “The king,” continued he, “is of too noble a nature, the king’s heart is too high to allow him to wish ill to those who do him good.”