ise--after I had met you in his house as an honoured guest and on
what appeared to be intimate terms of friendship--to learn that you
. . . in fact . . ."

"That I was nothing more than a shopkeeper," broke in Clyffurde with a
short laugh, "nothing better than our mutual friend M. Dumoulin,
glovemaker, of Grenoble--a highly worthy man whom M. le Comte de Cambray
esteems somewhat lower than his butler. It certainly must have surprised
you very much."

"Well, you know, old de Cambray has a horror of anything that pertains
to trade, and an avowed contempt for everything that he calls
'bourgeois.'"

"There's no doubt about that," assented Clyffurde fervently.

"Perhaps he does not know of your connection with . . ."

"Gloves?"

"With business people in Grenoble generally."

"Oh, yes, he does!" replied the Englishman quietly.

"Well, then?" queried de Marmont.

Then as his friend sat there silent with that quiet, good-humoured smile
lingering round his lips, he added apologetically:

"Perhaps I am indiscreet . . . but I never could understand it . . . and
you English are so reserved . . ."

"That I never told you how M. le Comte de Cambray, Commander of the
Order of the Holy Ghost, Grand Cross of the Order du Lys, Hereditary
Grand Chamberlain of France, etc., etc., came to sit at the same table
as a vendor and buyer of gloves," said Clyffurde gaily. "There's no
secret about it. I owe the Comte's exalted condescension to certain
letters of recommendation which he could not very well disregard."

"Oh! as to that . . ." quoth de Marmont with a shrug of the shoulders,
"people like the de Cambrays have their own codes of courtesy and of
friendship."

"In this case, my good de Marmont, it was the code of ordinary gratitude
that imposed its dictum even upon the autocratic and aristocratic Comte
de Cambray."

"Gratitude?" sneered de Marmont, "in a de Cambray?"

"M. le Comte de Cambray," said Clyffurde with slow emphasis, "his
mother, his sister, his brother-in-law and two of their faithful
servants, were rescued from the very foot of the guillotine by a band of
heroes--known in those days as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"I knew that!" said de Marmont quietly.

"Then perhaps you also knew that their leader was Sir Percy Blakeney--a
prince among gallant English gentlemen and my dead father's friend. When
my business affairs sent me to Grenoble, Sir Percy warmly recommended me
to the man whose life he ha