"Stand aside!"
A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except from the duke himself; but the command came again:
"Stand aside! Let me pass—me and my people!"
At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry:
"The smith! It's Gaspard the smith!"
And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for, manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but could play the game of life and death as well—to shout out like this, and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler.
But he looked the part.
He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed. He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he was scoured and shaven to the pink. His great arms were bare; and the exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin as white as a woman's.
He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart. But, curiously, there was no insolence in the posture. Insolence is a quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the eyes. Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and with a certain brooding pride in them. There may have been even a hint of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at the Princess Gabrielle. Then he had looked at the duke, and all his courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge.
But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone.