s house, at which you are not a little
surprised, I suppose?"

"Not at all; why should you not be one of M. Fouquet's friends? M.
Fouquet has a very large number, particularly among clever men."

Porthos had the modesty not to take the compliment to himself.
"Besides," he added, "you saw me at Belle-Isle."

"A greater reason for my believing you to be one of M. Fouquet's
friends."

"The fact is, I am acquainted with him," said Porthos, with a certain
embarrassment of manner.

"Ah, friend Porthos," said D'Artagnan, "how treacherously you have
behaved toward me."

"In what way?" exclaimed Porthos.

"What! you complete so admirable a work as the fortifications of
Belle-Isle, and you did not tell me of it!" Porthos colored. "Nay, more
than that," continued D'Artagnan, "you saw me out yonder, you know I am
in the king's service, and yet you could not guess that the king,
jealously desirous of learning the name of the man whose abilities have
wrought a work of which he has heard the most wonderful accounts--you
could not guess, I say, that the king sent me to learn who this man
was?"

"What! the king sent you to learn--"

"Of course; but don't let us speak of that any more."

"Not speak of it!" said Porthos; "on the contrary, we will speak of it;
and so the king knew that we were fortifying Belle-Isle?"

"Of course; does not the king know everything?"

"But he did not know who was fortifying it."

"No, he only suspected, from what he had been told of the nature of the
works, that it was some celebrated soldier or another."

"The devil!" said Porthos, "if I had only known that!"

"You would not have run away from Vannes as you did, perhaps?"

"No; what did you say when you couldn't find me?"

"My dear fellow, I reflected."

"Ah, indeed; you reflect, do you? Well, and what has that reflection led
to?"

"It led me to guess the whole truth."

"Come, then, tell me, what did you guess after all?" said Porthos,
settling himself into an armchair and assuming the airs of a sphinx.

"I guessed, in the first place, that you were fortifying Belle-Isle."

"There was no great difficulty in that, for you saw me at work."

"Wait a minute; I also guessed something else--that you were fortifying
Belle-Isle by M. Fouquet's orders."

"That's true."

"But not all. Whenever I feel myself in train for guessing, I do not
stop on my road; and so I guessed that M. Fouquet wished to preserve the
most absolute secrecy re