"From Spain?"

"Eh! eh!" said the musketeer.

"From Malta?" said Montalais.

"Ma foi! You are coming very near, ladies."

"Is it an island?" asked La Valliere.

"Mademoiselle," said D'Artagnan; "I will not give you the trouble of
seeking any further; I come from the country where M. de Beaufort is, at
this moment, embarking for Algiers."

"Have you seen the army?" asked several warlike fair ones.

"As plainly as I see you," replied D'Artagnan.

"And the fleet?"

"Yes; I saw everything."

"Have we any of us any friends there?" said Mademoiselle de
Tonnay-Charente, coldly, but in a manner to attract attention to a
question that was not without a calculated aim.

"Why?" replied D'Artagnan, "yes; there were M. de la Guillotiere, M. de
Manchy, M. de Bragelonne--"

La Valliere became pale. "M. de Bragelonne!" cried the perfidious
Athenais. "Eh, what!--is he gone to the wars?--he!"

Montalais trod upon her toe, but in vain.

"Do you know what my opinion is?" continued she, addressing D'Artagnan.

"No, mademoiselle; but I should like very much to know it."

"My opinion is, then, that all the men who go to this war, are
desperate, desponding men, whom love has treated ill; and who go to try
if they cannot find black women more kind than fair ones have been."

Some of the ladies laughed. La Valliere was evidently confused.
Montalais coughed loud enough to waken the dead.

"Mademoiselle," interrupted D'Artagnan, "you are in error when you speak
of black women at Gigelli; the women there are not black; it is true
they are not white--they are yellow."

"Yellow!" exclaimed the bevy of fair beauties.

"Eh! do not disparage it. I have never seen a finer color to match with
black eyes and a coral mouth."

"So much the better for M. de Bragelonne," said Mademoiselle de
Tonnay-Charente, with persistent malice. "He will make amends for his
loss. Poor fellow!"

A profound silence followed these words; and D'Artagnan had time to
observe and reflect that women--those mild doves--treat each other much
more cruelly than tigers and bears. But making La Valliere pale did not
satisfy Athenais; she determined to make her blush likewise. Resuming
the conversation without pause, "Do you know, Louise," said she, "that
that is a great sin on your conscience?"

"What sin, mademoiselle?" stammered the unfortunate girl, looking round
her for support, without finding it.

"Eh!--why?" continued Athenais, "the poor young man