"I will explain. You may, perhaps, have recognized the weapon as having belonged to someone whose compatriot you blush to be, but whose name you would tell me none the less if I should appeal to your sense of honor."
"If you treat this as a serious matter," replied D'Alvimar, "although it is my turn not to understand you, I will examine it again."
He took up the dagger, scrutinized it very calmly, and said:
"This is of Spanish workmanship, a weapon in very common use among us. There is no man of noble birth—I may say no free man—who does not carry a similar one in his belt or his sleeve. The device is one of the most common and most widely used: I serve God, or I serve my master, or I serve honor. We find something of that sort on the majority of our arms, whether rapiers, pistols or cutlasses."
"Very good; but these two letters S. A., which seem to be a private cipher?"
"You can find them on my own weapons, as well as this device; they are the private marks of the Salamanca factory."
Bois-Doré felt his suspicions fade away in face of such a natural explanation.
Lucilio's suspicions, on the contrary, increased in force. He considered that D'Alvimar was altogether too eager to anticipate the explanation he might be asked to give concerning his own motto and his own initials, which they were supposed not to know.
He touched the marquis's knee while pretending to pat Fleurial, and thus warned him not to abandon his investigation.
D'Alvimar seemed desirous to forward it himself, for he asked with an air of wounded pride the reason of this interrogatory.