"I might have learnt that if I had presumed to touch the keys," said the youth, confidently.
Against her inclination, Andrea cast a second look on the face animated by a feeling like a martyr's in fanaticism. But the lord, who had not his daughter's calmness and clear head, felt his wrath kindle at the youth being right and their being inhumane in leaving him with the watchdog at Taverney. It is hard to forgive an inferior for the wrong which he may convict us with; hence he grew heated as his daughter cooled.
"You rapscallion!" he said. "You desert and play the vagabond and spout such tomfoolery as we hear when you are brought to task. But as I do not wish the king's highway to be infested with gipsy tramps and thieves——"
Andrea held up her hand to appease the patrician, whose exaggeration annulled his superiority. But he put her aside and continued:
"I shall tell Chief of Police Sartines about you, and have you locked up in the House of Correction, you fledgeling philosopher."
"Lord Baron," returned Gilbert, drawing back but slapping his hat down on his head with the ire which made him white, "I have found patrons in town at whose door your Sartines dances attendance!"
"The deuse you say so?" questioned the baron. "You shall taste the stirrup leather anyway. Andrea, call your brother, who is close to hand."
Andrea stooped out toward the offender and bade him begone in an imperious voice.
"Philip," called the old noble.
Gilbert stood on the spot, mute and unmoving, as in ecstatic worship. Up rode a cavalier at the call; it was the Knight of Redcastle, joyous and brilliant in a captain's uniform.