“Everything that your eminence may please to command me,” was the reply.

“You will do for me what you have done for the queen?”

“Certainly,” D’Artagnan said to himself, “he wishes to make me speak out. He’s not more cunning than De Richelieu was! Devil take him!” Then he said aloud:

“The queen, my lord? I don’t comprehend.”

“You don’t comprehend that I want you and your three friends to be of use to me?”

“Which of my friends, my lord?”

“Your three friends — the friends of former days.”

“Of former days, my lord!