“Ah, you are a cardinalist, then, sir, are you?” cried she; “and you serve the party of those who ill-treat your wife and insult your queen?”

“Private interests are as nothing before the interests of all. I am for those who are saving the state,” said Bonacieux emphatically.

“And do you know what that state is you talk about?” demanded Madame Bonacieux, shrugging her shoulders. “Be satisfied with being a plain, straightforward bourgeois, and turn your attention toward that side which holds out the greatest advantages.”

“Eh, eh!” said Bonacieux, slapping a plump, round bag, which gave back a silvery sound; “what do you think of this, my lady preacher?”

“Where does that money come from?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“From the cardinal?”

“From him, and from my friend the Comte de Rochefort. But what do you require of me then? Come, let us see.”

“I have told you. You must set out instantly, sir; you must accomplish loyally the commission with which I deign to charge you; and on that condition I pardon everything, I forget everything; and still further“—and she held out her hand to him—“I give you my love again.”

“But, my dear love, reflect a little upon what you require of me. London is far from Paris, very far, and perhaps the commission with which you charge me is not without dangers?”

“Of what consequence is that, if you avoid them?”

“Well, then, Madame Bonacieux,” said the mercer—“well, then, I positively refuse. Intrigues terrify me.”

Bonacieux fell into a profound reflection. He turned the two angers in his brain—the cardinal’s and the queen’s. The cardinal’s predominated enormously.

“Well, I will give it up, then,” said the young woman, sighing. “It is well as it is; say no more about it.”

“Supposing, at least, you should tell me what I should have to do in London,” replied Bonacieux.

“It is of no use for you to know anything about it,” said the young woman, who drew back now by an instinctive mistrust. “It was about one of those follies of interest to women, a purchase by which much might have been gained.”

But the more the young woman fought shy of committing herself, the more important Bonacieux conceived to be the secret which she declined to communicate to him. He resolved, then, that instant to hasten to the Comte de Rochefort, and tell him that the queen was looking for a messenger to send to London.

“Pardon me for leaving you, my dear Madame Bonacieux,” said he; “but not knowing you would come to see me, I had made an engagement with a friend. I shall soon return; and if you will wait only a few minutes for me, as soon as I have concluded my business with that friend, I will come to get you; and as it is growing late, I will conduct you back to the Louvre.”

“No, thank you, sir; you are not brave enough to be of any use to me whatever,” replied Madame Bonacieux. “I shall return very safely to the Louvre by myself.”