espectful.

"The messer must often be engaged in great risks, in perilous
encounters. Is it not so? Then he will do well to carry ever over his
heart the sacred image of our Lord."

He held up to my inspection a silver rosary from which depended a
crucifix of ivory, the sad image of the dying Christ carved upon it.
Even in Monsieur's chapel, even in the church at St. Quentin, was
nothing so masterfully wrought as this figurine to be held in the palm
of the hand. The tears started in my eyes to look at it, and I crossed
myself in reverence. I bethought me how I had trampled on my crucifix;
the stranger all unwittingly had struck a bull's-eye. I had committed
grave offence against God, but perhaps if, putting gewgaws aside, I
should give my all for this cross, he would call the account even. I
knew nothing of the value of a carving such as this, but I remembered I
was not moneyless, and I said, albeit somewhat shyly:

"I cannot take the rosary. But I should like well the crucifix. But
then, I have only ten pistoles."

"Ten pistoles!" he repeated contemptuously. "Corpo di Bacco! The
workmanship alone is worth twenty." Then, viewing my fallen visage, he
added: "However, I have received fair treatment in this house, beshrew
me but I have! I have made good sales to your young count. What sort of
master is he, this M. le Comte de Mar?"

"Oh, there's nobody like him," I answered, "except, of course, M. le
Duc."

"Ah, then you have two masters?" he inquired curiously, yet with a
certain careless air. It struck me suddenly, overwhelmingly, that he was
a spy, come here under the guise of an honest tradesman. But he should
gain nothing from me.

"This is the house of the Duke of St. Quentin," I said. "Surely you
could not come in at the gate without discovering that?"

"He is a very grand seigneur, then, this duke?"

"Assuredly," I replied cautiously.

"More of a man than the Comte de Mar?"

I would have told him to mind his own business, had it not been for my
hopes of the crucifix. If he planned to sell it to me cheap, thereby
hoping to gain information, marry, I saw no reason why I should not buy
it at his price--and withhold the information. So I made civil answer:

"They are both as gallant gentlemen as any living. About this cross,
now--"

"Oh, yes," he answered at once, accepting with willingness--well
feigned, I thought--the change of topic. "You can give me ten pistoles,
say you? 'Tis making you a present