h! I am well enough acquainted with women who are coquettes," said
Aramis.

"My dear friend!"

"It is a long time ago since I finished my education, you mean. But
women are the same, throughout the centuries."

"True; but men change, and you at the present day are far more
suspicious than you formerly were." And then, beginning to laugh, he
added, "Come, if La Valliere is willing to love me only to the extent
of a third, and the king two-thirds, do you think the condition
acceptable?"

Aramis rose impatiently. "La Valliere," he said, "has never loved, and
never will love, any one but the king."

"At all events," said Fouquet, "what would you do?"

"Ask me rather what I would have done?"

"Well! what would you have done?"

"In the first place, I should not have allowed that man to depart."

"Toby?"

"Yes; Toby is a traitor. Nay, I am sure of it, and I would not have let
him go until he had told me the truth."

"There is still time. I will recall him, and do you question him in your
turn."

"Agreed."

"But I assure you it is useless. He has been with me for twenty years,
and has never made the slightest mistake, and yet," added Fouquet,
laughing, "it would have been easy enough for him to have done so."

"Still, call him back. This morning I fancy I saw that face, in earnest
conversation with one of M. Colbert's men."

"Where was that?"

"Opposite the stables."

"Bah! all my people are at daggers drawn with that fellow."

"I saw him, I tell you, and his face, which should have been unknown to
me when he entered just now, struck me as disagreeably familiar."

"Why did you not say something, then, while he was here?"

"Because it is only at this very minute that my memory is clear upon the
subject."

"Really," said Fouquet, "you alarm me." And he again rang the bell.

"Provided that it is not already too late," said Aramis.

Fouquet once more rang impatiently. The valet usually in attendance
appeared. "Toby!" said Fouquet, "send Toby." The valet again shut the
door.

"You leave me at perfect liberty, I suppose?"

"Entirely so."

"I may employ all means, then, to ascertain the truth."

"All."

"Intimidation, even?"

"I constitute you public prosecutor in my place."

They waited ten minutes longer, but uselessly, and Fouquet, thoroughly
out of patience, again rang loudly.

"Toby!" he exclaimed.

"Monseigneur," said the valet, "they are looking for him."

"He cannot be far distant,