De Wardes observed this, and continued aloud:--"Oh! if La Valliere were a coquette like Madame, whose innocent flirtations, I am sure, were, first of all, the cause of the Duke of Buckingham being sent back to England, and afterwards were the reason of your being sent into exile; for you will not deny, I suppose, that Madame's pretty ways really had a certain influence over you ?" The courtiers drew nearer to the speakers, Saint-Aignan at their head, and then Manicamp.
"But, my dear fellow, whose fault was that ?" said De Guiche, laughing.
"I am a vain, conceited fellow, I know, and everybody else knows it too.
I took seriously that which was only intended as a jest, and got myself exiled for my pains.

But I saw my error.

I overcame my vanity, and I obtained my recall, by making the _amende honorable_, and by promising myself to overcome this defect; and the consequence is, that I am so thoroughly cured, that I now laugh at the very thing which, three or four days ago, would have almost broken my heart.

But Raoul is in love, and is loved in return; he cannot laugh at the reports which disturb his happiness--reports which you seem to have undertaken to interpret, when you know, marquis, as I do, as these gentlemen do, as every one does in fact, that all such reports are pure calumny." "Calumny!" exclaimed De Wardes, furious at seeing himself caught in the snare by De Guiche's coolness of temper.
"Certainly--calumny.

Look at this letter from him, in which he tell me you have spoken ill of Mademoiselle de la Valliere; and where he asks me, if what you reported about this young girl is true or not.