"Alexandre Dumas. The Three Musketeers." - читать интересную книгу автора

"His Eminence, then, orders me--" said the lady.
"To return instantly to England, and to inform him as soon as the duke
leaves London."
"And as to my other instructions?" asked the fair traveler.
"They are contained in this box, which you will not open until you are
on the other side of the Channel."
"Very well; and you--what will you do?"
"I--I return to Paris."
"What, without chastising this insolent boy?" asked the lady.
The stranger was about to reply; but at the moment he opened his
mouth, D'Artagnan, who had heard all, precipitated himself over the
threshold of the door.
"This insolent boy chastises others," cried he; "and I hope that this
time he whom he ought to chastise will not escape him as before."
"Will not escape him?" replied the stranger, knitting his brow.
"No; before a woman you would dare not fly, I presume?"
"Remember," said Milady, seeing the stranger lay his hand on his
sword, "the least delay may ruin everything."
"You are right," cried the gentleman; "begone then, on your part, and
I will depart as quickly on mine." And bowing to the lady, sprang into his
saddle, while her coachman ap-plied his whip vigorously to his horses. The
two interlocutors thus separated, taking oppo-site directions, at full
gallop.
"Pay him, booby!" cried the stranger to his servant, without checking
the speed of his horse; and the man, after throwing two or three silver
pieces at the foot of mine host, gal-loped after his master.
"Base coward! false gentleman!" cried D'Artagnan, springing forward,
in his turn, after the servant. But his wound had rendered him too weak to
support such an exertion. Scarcely had he gone ten steps when his ears
began to tingle, a faintness seized him, a cloud of blood passed over his
eyes, and he fell in the middle of the street, crying still, "Coward!
coward! coward!"
"He is a coward, indeed," grumbled the host, drawing near to
D'Artagnan, and endeav-oring by this little flattery to make up matters
with the young man, as the heron of the fa-ble did with the snail he had
despised the evening before.
"Yes, a base coward," murmured D'Artagnan; "but she--she was very
beautiful."
"What she?" demanded the host.
"Milady," faltered D'Artagnan, and fainted a second time.
"Ah, it's all one," said the host; "I have lost two customers, but
this one remains, of whom I am pretty certain for some days to come. There
will be eleven crowns gained."
It is to be remembered that eleven crowns was just the sum that
remained in D'Artag-nan's purse.
The host had reckoned upon eleven days of confinement at a crown a
day, but he had reckoned without his guest. On the following morning at
five o'clock D'Artagnan arose, and descending to the kitchen without help,
asked, among other ingredients the list of which has not come down to us,
for some oil, some wine, and some rosemary, and with his mother's recipe in