I stopped him hurriedly, exclaiming, "Be careful, Raoul, or you may tell too much." Looking at me in consternation, he said slowly, "You do not mean to suggest that you have gone over to Mazarin?" "At least I have taken service with him." "Then we shall be fighting on opposite sides! What a wretched business it is, breaking up old friendships in this way!" "Ours need not be broken; and as to your party schemes against the Cardinal, they are bound to fail. There are too many traitors among you. Mazarin learns of your plots as soon as they are formed, and you wonder at his skill in evading them! Why, he has nothing to do but sit still and watch you destroy each other." "A pleasant prospect!" exclaimed Raoul; "but now about yourself. You have not yet explained how you became a _Mazarin_, and it is difficult to distinguish the truth among a host of fables." "It will be more difficult for you to believe it;" upon which I recounted my various adventures since arriving in the city. "D'Arcy is true as steel," said he, "but too thoughtless to be trusted with a secret. As to De Retz, I warned the Duke to have nothing to do with him. He fights for his own hand, and cares not who sinks as long as he swims." "Still," I suggested, "the first traitor must have been one of your own people." He recognised the force of this, and eagerly questioned me with a view to learning the name of the man who had sold his party; but in this I did not gratify him, having no more than a suspicion, though a strong one, myself. For some time after this we walked along in silence, but presently he said, "I suppose you are established in the Palais Royal?" "No. Belloc--you remember my father's old friend--wished to give me a commission in the Guards, but the Cardinal thought I could serve him better in another direction. For the present I am living in the street which runs at right angles to the front entrance." "Well within call," remarked Raoul, adding, "meet me at the Luxembourg this evening; the Duke holds a reception. You need not fear putting your head in the lion's mouth. There is a truce: the calm before the storm; so let us make the most of it. You will come, will you not? That is right. I must leave you now; there is Vautier beckoning, but we shall meet again this evening." When he had gone I began to reckon up how things stood. Raoul was my bosom friend, who had held by me through good and ill. I loved him as a brother, and now it appeared we might be engaged at any time in mortal strife. The prospect was not pleasant, and I walked back to the Rue des Catonnes in anything but cheerful spirits. I had selected this street, because, as Raoul said, it was within call: the rooms I had chosen on account of their cheapness. To my surprise and disgust, the Cardinal proved a poor paymaster, and, after buying my fine new clothes, there was little money left to spend in rent.