"If you please to be at leisure to hear me, Madam," said
Monsieur de Nemours, "I'll presently make you acquainted with the true
state of the thing, and inform you of matters of so great importance to
the Viscount, that I would not even have trusted the Prince of Cleves
with them, had I not stood in need of his assistance to have the honour
to see you." "I believe," said Madam de Cleves in a very unconcerned
manner, "that anything you may give yourself the trouble of telling me,
will be to little purpose; you had better go to the Queen-Dauphin, and
plainly tell her, without using these roundabout ways, the interest you
have in that letter, since she has been told, as well as I, that it
belongs to you."
The uneasiness of mind which Monsieur de Nemours observed in Madam de
Cleves gave him the most sensible pleasure he ever knew, and lessened
his impatience to justify himself: "I don't know, Madam," replied he,
"what the Queen-Dauphin may have been told; but I am not at all
concerned in that letter; it is addressed to the Viscount." "I believe
so," replied Madam de Cleves, "but the Queen-Dauphin has heard to the
contrary, and she won't think it very probable that the Viscount's
letters should fall out of your pocket; you must therefore have some
reason, that I don't know of, for concealing the truth of this matter
from the Queen-Dauphin; I advise you to confess it to her." "I have
nothing to confess to her," says he, "the letter is not directed to me,
and if there be anyone that I would have satisfied of it, it is not the
Queen-Dauphin; but, Madam, since the Viscount's interest is nearly
concerned in this, be pleased to let me acquaint you with some matters
that are worthy of your curiosity."
Madam de Cleves by her silence
showed her readiness to hear him, and he as succinctly as possible
related to her all he had just heard from the Viscount. Though the
circumstances were naturally surprising, and proper to create
attention, yet Madam de Cleves heard them with such coldness, that she
seemed either not to believe them true, or to think them indifferent to
her; she continued in this temper until the Duke de Nemours spoke of
Madam d'Amboise's billet, which was directed to the Viscount, and was a
proof of all he had been saying; as Madam de Cleves knew that this lady
was a friend of Madam de Themines, she found some probability in what
the Duke de Nemours had said, which made her think, that the letter
perhaps was not addressed to him; this thought suddenly, and in spite
of herself, drew her out of the coldness and indifferency she had until
then been in.