"May I ask what it was you did not tell him?" inquired De Guiche.
"La Valliere.... What is it? and what was that strange circumstance you seem to have known out yonder, which Bragelonne, who was here on the spot, was not acquainted with?"
"Do you really ask me that in a serious manner?"
"What! you, a member of the court, living in Madame's household, a friend of Monsieur's, a guest at their table, the favorite of our lovely princess?"
Guiche colored violently from anger. "What princess are you alluding to?" he said.
"I am only acquainted with one, my dear fellow. I am speaking of Madame herself. Are you devoted to another princess, then? Come, tell me."
Guiche was on the point of launching out, but he saw the drift of the remark. A quarrel was imminent between the two young men. De Wardes wished the quarrel to be only in Madame's name, while De Guiche would not accept it except on La Valliere's account. From this moment, it became a series of feigned attacks, which would have continued until one of the two had been touched home. De Guiche therefore resumed all the self-possession he could command.
"There is not the slightest question in the world of Madame in this matter, my dear De Wardes," said Guiche, "but simply of what you were talking about just now."
"That you had concealed certain things from Bragelonne."
"Certain things which you know as well as I do," replied De Wardes.
"If you tell me what it is, I shall know, but not otherwise, I swear."
"What! I, who have just arrived from a distance of sixty leagues, and you who have not stirred from this place, who have witnessed with your own eye that which rumor informed me of at Calais! Do you now tell me seriously that you do not know what it is about? Oh! comte, this is hardly charitable of you."
"As you like, De Wardes; but I again repeat, I know nothing."
"You are very discreet--well!--perhaps it is very prudent of you."
"And so you will not tell me anything, will not tell me any more than you told Bragelonne?"
"You are pretending to be deaf, I see. I am convinced that Madame could not possibly have more command over herself than you have over yourself."
"Double hypocrite," murmured Guiche to himself, "you are again returning to the old subject."