Chicot the Jester Part 41

"Towards Angers, and you?"

"We also."

"Ah! I should envy your happiness if envy were not so vile."

"Eh! M. de Bussy, marry, and you will be as happy as we are,"

said Jeanne; "it is so easy to be happy when you are loved."

"Ah! madame, everyone is not so fortunate as you."

"But you, the universal favorite."

"To be loved by everyone is as though you were loved by no one, madame."

"Well, let me marry you, and you will know the happiness you deny."

"I do not deny the happiness, only that it does not exist for me."

"Shall I marry you?"

"If you marry me according to your taste, no; if according to mine, yes."

"Are you in love with a woman whom you cannot marry?"

"Comte," said Bussy, "beg your wife not to plunge dagger in my heart."

"Take care, Bussy; you will make me think it is with her you are in love."

"If it were so, you will confess, at least, that I am a lover not much to be feared."

"True," said St. Luc, remembering how Bussy had brought him his wife. "But confess, your heart is occupied."

"I avow it."

"By a love, or by a caprice?" asked Jeanne.

"By a pa.s.sion, madame."

"I will cure you."

"I do not believe it."

"I will marry you."

"I doubt it."

"And I will make you as happy as you ought to be."

"Alas! madame, my only happiness now is to be unhappy."

"I am very determined."

"And I also."

"Well, will you accompany us?"

"Where are you going?"

"To the chateau of Meridor."

The blood mounted to the cheeks of Bussy, and then he grew so pale, that his secret would certainly have been betrayed, had not Jeanne been looking at her husband with a smile. Bussy therefore had time to recover himself, and said,--

"Where is that?"

"It is the property of one of my best friends."

"One of your best friends, and--are they at home?"

"Doubtless," said Jeanne, who was completely ignorant of the events of the last two months; "but have you never heard of the Baron de Meridor, one of the richest n.o.blemen in France, and of----"

"Of what?"

"Of his daughter, Diana, the most beautiful girl possible?"

Bussy was filled with astonishment, asking himself by what singular happiness he found on the road people to talk to him of Diana de Meridor to echo the only thought which he had in his mind.

"Is this castle far off, madame?" asked he.

"About seven leagues, and we shall sleep there to-night; you will come, will you not?"

"Yes, madame."

"Come, that is already a step towards the happiness I promised you."

"And the baron, what sort of a man is he?"

"A perfect gentleman, a preux chevalier, who, had he lived in King Arthur's time, would have had a place at his round table."

"And," said Bussy, steadying his voice, "to whom is his daughter married?"

"Diana married?"

"Would that be extraordinary?"

"Of course not, only I should have been the first to hear of it."

Bussy could not repress a sigh. "Then," said he, "you expect to find Mademoiselle de Meridor at the chateau with her father?"