“No; I have heard Porthos speak of her, that’s all.”
“Do you know who this pretended duchess is?”
“I repeat to you, I don’t know her.”
“Why, she is the old wife of a procurator of the Châtelet, Monsieur, named Madame Coquenard, who, although she is at least fifty, still gives herself jealous airs. It struck me as very odd that a princess should live in the Rue aux Ours.”
“But how do you know all this?”
“Because she flew into a great passion on receiving the letter, saying that M. Porthos was a weathercock, and that she was sure it was for some woman he had received this wound.”
“Has he been wounded, then?”
“Oh, good Lord! What have I said?”
“You said that Porthos had received a sword cut.”
“Yes, but he has forbidden me so strictly to say so.”
“And why so.”
“Zounds, Monsieur! Because he had boasted that he would perforate the stranger with whom you left him in dispute; whereas the stranger, on the contrary, in spite of all his rodomontades quickly threw him on his back. As M. Porthos is a very boastful man, he insists that nobody shall know he has received this wound except the duchess, whom he endeavored to interest by an account of his adventure.”
“It is a wound that confines him to his bed?”