n; your
agreeable company will divert me."

"Oh, oh!" thought d'Artagnan. "She has never been so kind before. On
guard!"

Milady assumed the most agreeable air possible, and conversed with more
than her usual brilliancy. At the same time the fever, which for an
instant abandoned her, returned to give luster to her eyes, color to her
cheeks, and vermillion to her lips. D'Artagnan was again in the presence
of the Circe who had before surrounded him with her enchantments. His
love, which he believed to be extinct but which was only asleep, awoke
again in his heart. Milady smiled, and d'Artagnan felt that he could
damn himself for that smile. There was a moment at which he felt
something like remorse.

By degrees, Milady became more communicative. She asked d'Artagnan if he
had a mistress.

"Alas!" said d'Artagnan, with the most sentimental air he could assume,
"can you be cruel enough to put such a question to me--to me, who, from
the moment I saw you, have only breathed and sighed through you and for
you?"

Milady smiled with a strange smile.

"Then you love me?" said she.

"Have I any need to tell you so? Have you not perceived it?"

"It may be; but you know the more hearts are worth the capture, the more
difficult they are to be won."

"Oh, difficulties do not affright me," said d'Artagnan. "I shrink before
nothing but impossibilities."

"Nothing is impossible," replied Milady, "to true love."

"Nothing, madame?"

"Nothing," replied Milady.

"The devil!" thought d'Artagnan. "The note is changed. Is she going to
fall in love with me, by chance, this fair inconstant; and will she be
disposed to give me myself another sapphire like that which she gave me
for de Wardes?"

D'Artagnan rapidly drew his seat nearer to Milady's.

"Well, now," she said, "let us see what you would do to prove this love
of which you speak."

"All that could be required of me. Order; I am ready."

"For everything?"

"For everything," cried d'Artagnan, who knew beforehand that he had not
much to risk in engaging himself thus.

"Well, now let us talk a little seriously," said Milady, in her turn
drawing her armchair nearer to d'Artagnan's chair.

"I am all attention, madame," said he.

Milady remained thoughtful and undecided for a moment; then, as if
appearing to have formed a resolution, she said, "I have an enemy."

"You, madame!" said d'Artagnan, affecting surprise; "is that possible,
my God?--good and beautiful as y