Keep it for a future occasion." He then took the ring off Porthos' finger, and approaching Truechen, said to her: "Madame, Monsieur le Baron hardly knows how to entreat you, out of your regard for him, to accept this little ring.

M.de Valon is one of the most generous and discreet men of my acquaintance.

He wished to offer you a farm that he has at Bracieux, but I dissuaded him from it." "Oh!" said Truechen, looking eagerly at the diamond.
"Monsieur le Baron!" exclaimed Planchet, quite overcome.
"My good friend," stammered out Porthos, delighted at having been so well represented by D'Artagnan.

These several exclamations, uttered at the same moment, made quite a pathetic winding-up of a day which might have finished in a very ridiculous manner.

But D'Artagnan was there, and, on every occasion, wherever D'Artagnan had exercised any control, matters had ended only just in the way he wished and desired.