confidence in every one;
the proof of which is, that I have fixed upon you to escort me."

"Shall you not go with the queen?"

"No," replied Mazarin.

"Then you will start after the queen?"

"No," said Mazarin again.

"Ah!" said D'Artagnan, who began to understand.

"Yes," continued the cardinal. "I have my plan. With the queen I double
her risk; after the queen her departure would double mine; then, the
court once safe, I might be forgotten. The great are often ungrateful."

"Very true," said D'Artagnan, fixing his eyes, in spite of himself, on
the queen's diamond, which Mazarin wore on his finger. Mazarin followed
the direction of his eyes and gently turned the hoop of the ring inside.

"I wish," he said, with his cunning smile, "to prevent them from being
ungrateful to me."

"It is but Christian charity," replied D'Artagnan, "not to lead one's
neighbors into temptation."

"It is exactly for that reason," said Mazarin, "that I wish to start
before them."

D'Artagnan smiled--he was just the man to understand the astute Italian.
Mazarin saw the smile and profited by the moment.

"You will begin, therefore, by taking me first out of Paris, will you
not, my dear M. d'Artagnan?"

"A difficult commission, my lord," replied D'Artagnan, resuming his
serious manner.

"But," said Mazarin, "you did not make so many difficulties with regard
to the king and queen."

"The king and the queen are my king and queen," replied the musketeer,
"my life is theirs and I must give it for them. If they ask it what have
I to say?"

"That is true," murmured Mazarin, in a low tone, "but as thy life is not
mine I suppose I must buy it, must I not?" and sighing deeply he began
to turn the hoop of his ring outside again. D'Artagnan smiled. These
two men met at one point and that was, cunning; had they been actuated
equally by courage, the one would have done great things for the other.

"But, also," said Mazarin, "you must understand that if I ask this
service from you it is with the intention of being grateful."

"Is it still only an intention, your eminence?" asked D'Artagnan.

"Stay," said Mazarin, drawing the ring from his finger, "my dear
D'Artagnan, there is a diamond which belonged to you formerly, it is but
just it should return to you; take it, I pray."

D'Artagnan spared Mazarin the trouble of insisting, and after looking to
see if the stone was the same and assuring himself of the purity of
its water, he took i