'Well!' he began curtly, as soon as he felt assured that there were no eavesdroppers nigh. 'He is here.'
'Yes!' said de Lalain, also sinking his voice to a whisper. 'He came early, as one who is of no account, and at once mixed with the throng.'
'You were here when he arrived?'
'No. But I came soon after.'
'Was there much curiosity about him?'
'Naturally,' replied de Lalain. 'Our good bourgeois of Cambray do not often have the chance of gossiping over so mysterious a personality.'
'But did they receive him well?'
De Lalain shrugged his shoulders and, by way of reply, pointed to the further end of the room, where a tall figure, richly though very sombrely dressed and wearing a mask of black satin, stood out in splendid isolation from the rest of the crowd.
Gilles, from where he stood, caught de Lalain's gesture and d'Inchy's scrutinizing look. He replied to both by a scarce perceptible obeisance. His keen eyes under the shield of the mask had already swept with a searching glance over the entire company. Strangely enough, though the success of his present adventure was bound up in a woman, it was the men's faces that he scanned most eagerly at first. A goodly number of them wore masks like himself, but when he drew himself up for a moment to his full height with a movement that was almost a challenge, he felt quite sure in his own mind that he would at once detect—by that subtle instinct of self-preservation which is the attribute of every gambler—if danger of recognition lurked anywhere about.
He himself had never been to Cambray, it is true, and he was a knight of such humble degree that it was not very likely that, among this assembly of Flemish notabilities, some one should just happen to know him intimately enough to denounce him as the adventurer that ne really was. Still, the danger did exist—enough of it, at any rate, to add zest to the present situation. Light-hearted and careless as always, Gilles shrugged his broad shoulders and turned his attention to the ladies.