sty, with the
greatest humility, your reason for this refusal?"

"The reason!--A question to me!" exclaimed the king.

"A demand, sire!"

The king, leaning with both his hands upon the table, said, in a deep
tone of concentrated passion: "You have lost all recollection of what is
usual at court. At court, please to remember, no one ventures to put a
question to the king."

"Very true, sire; but if men do not question, they conjecture."

"Conjecture! What may that mean, monsieur?"

"Very frequently, sire, conjecture with regard to a particular subject
implies a want of frankness on the part of the king--"

"Monsieur!"

"And a want of confidence on the part of the subject," pursued Athos,
intrepidly.

"You forget yourself," said the king, hurried away by anger in spite of
all his self-control.

"Sire, I am obliged to seek elsewhere for what I thought I should find
in your majesty. Instead of obtaining a reply from you, I am compelled
to make one for myself."

The king rose. "Monsieur le comte," he said, "I have now given you all
the time I had at my disposal." This was a dismissal.

"Sire," replied the comte, "I have not yet had time to tell your majesty
what I came with the express object of saying, and I so rarely see your
majesty that I ought to avail myself of the opportunity."

"Just now you spoke rudely of conjectures; you are now becoming
offensive, monsieur."

"Oh, sire! offend your majesty! I?--never! All my life through I have
maintained that kings are above all other men, not only from their rank
and power, but from their nobleness of heart and their true dignity
of mind. I never can bring myself to believe that my sovereign, he who
passed his word to me, did so with a mental reservation."

"What do you mean? what mental reservation do you allude to?"

"I will explain my meaning," said Athos, coldly. "If, in refusing
Mademoiselle de la Valliere to Monsieur de Bragelonne, your majesty
had some other object in view than the happiness and fortune of the
vicomte--"

"You perceive, monsieur, that you are offending me."

"If, in requiring the vicomte to delay his marriage, your majesty's only
object was to remove the gentleman to whom Mademoiselle de la Valliere
was engaged--"

"Monsieur! monsieur!"

"I have heard it said so in every direction, sire. Your majesty's
affection for Mademoiselle de la Valliere is spoken of on all sides."

The king tore his gloves, which he had been biting for