?"

"Indeed, yes."

"Very good. I should quarrel with you. You would never forgive me for
having destroyed your illusion, as people say of love affairs."

"Monsieur d'Artagnan, you know all; and yet you plunge me in perplexity
and despair, in death itself."

"There, there, now."

"I never complain, as you know; but as Heaven and my father would never
forgive me for blowing out my brains, I will go and get the first person
I meet to give me the information which you withhold; I will tell him he
lies, and--"

"And you would kill him. And a fine affair that would be. So much the
better. What should I care for it. Kill any one you please, my boy, if
it can give you any pleasure. It is exactly like the man with the
toothache who keeps on saying, 'Oh! what torture I am suffering. I could
bite a piece of iron in half.' My answer always is, 'Bite, my friend,
bite; the tooth will remain all the same.'"

"I shall not kill any one, monsieur," said Raoul, gloomily.

"Yes, yes! you now assume a different tone; instead of killing, you will
get killed yourself, I suppose you mean? Very fine, indeed! How much I
should regret you! Of course I should go about all day, saying, 'Ah!
what a fine stupid fellow that Bragelonne was! as great a stupid as I
ever met with. I have passed my whole life almost in teaching him how to
hold and use his sword properly, and the silly fellow has got himself
spitted like a lark.' Go, then, Raoul, go and get yourself disposed of,
if you like. I hardly know who can have taught you logic, but deuce take
me if your father has not been regularly robbed of his money by whoever
did so."

Raoul buried his face in his hands, murmuring, "No, no; I have not a
single friend in the world."

"Oh! bah!" said D'Artagnan.

"I meet with nothing but raillery or indifference."

"Idle fancies, monsieur. I do not laugh at you, although I am a Gascon.
And, as for being indifferent, if I were so, I should have sent you
about your business a quarter of an hour ago, for you would make a man
who was out of his senses with delight as dull as possible, and would be
the death of one who was only out of spirits. How now, young man! do you
wish me to disgust you with the girl you are attached to, and to teach
you to execrate the whole sex who constitute the honor and happiness of
human life?"

"Oh! tell me, monsieur, and I will bless you."

"Do you think, my dear fellow, that I can have crammed into my brain all
about