"Oh! I am well enough acquainted with women who are coquettes," said Aramis. "My dear friend!" "It is a long time ago since I finished my studies, you mean. But women do not change." "True; but men change, and you at the present day are far more suspicious than you formerly were." And then, beginning to laugh, he added, "Come, if La Valliere is willing to love me only to the extent of a third and the king two-thirds, do you think the condition acceptable?" Aramis rose impatiently. "La Valliere," he said, "has never loved, and will never love any one but the king." "At all events," said Fouquet, "what would you do?" "Ask me rather what I would have done?" "Well, what would you have done?" "In the first place, I should not have allowed that man to go." "Toby!" "Yes; Toby is a traitor. Nay, I am sure of it, and I would not have let him go until he had told me the truth." "There is still time. I will recall him, and do you question him in your turn." "Agreed." "But I assure you it is quite useless. He has been with me for the last twenty years, and has never made the slightest mistake, and yet," added Fouquet, laughing, "it has been easy enough." "Still, call him back. This morning I fancy I saw that face in earnest conversation with one of M. Colbert's men." "Where was that?" "Opposite the stables." "Bah! all my people are at daggers drawn with that fellow." "I saw him, I tell you, and his face, which I ought not to have recognized when he entered just now, struck me in a disagreeable manner." "Why did you not say something, then, while he was here?" "Because it is only at this very minute that my memory is clear upon the subject." "Really," said Fouquet, "you alarm me." And he again rang the bell. "Provided that it is not already too late," said Aramis. Fouquet once more rang impatiently. The valet usually in attendance appeared. "Toby!" said Fouquet, "send Toby." The valet again shut the door. "You leave me at perfect liberty, I suppose?" "Entirely so." "I may employ all means, then, to ascertain the truth." "All." "Intimidation, even?" "I constitute you public prosecutor in my place." They waited ten minutes longer, but uselessly, and Fouquet, thoroughly out of patience, again rang loudly. "Toby!" he exclaimed. "Monseigneur," said the valet, "they are looking for him." "He cannot be far distant, I have not given him any commission to execute." "I will go and see, monseigneur," replied the valet, as he closed the door. Aramis, during this interval, walked impatiently but silently up and down the cabinet. Again they waited another ten minutes. Fouquet rang in a manner to awaken the very dead. The valet again presented himself, trembling in a way to induce a belief that he was the bearer of bad news.