“I drink to your better fortune,” he said, gravely touching Villon’s cup with his own.
“To our better acquaintance,” said the poet, growing bold. A mere man of the people would have been awed by the courtesy of the old seigneur, but Villon was hardened in that matter; he had made mirth for great lords before now, and found them as black rascals as himself. And so he devoted himself to the viands with a ravenous gusto, while the old man, leaning backward, watched him with steady, curious eyes.
“You have blood on your shoulder, my man,” he said. Montigny must have laid his wet right hand upon him as he left the house. He cursed Montigny in his heart.
“It was none of my shedding,” he stammered.
“I had not supposed so,” returned his host quietly.
“A brawl?”
“Well, something of that sort,” Villon admitted with a quaver.
“Perhaps a fellow murdered?”
“Oh no, not murdered,” said the poet, more and more confused. “It was all fair play—murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!” he added fervently.
“One rogue the fewer, I dare say,” observed the master of the house.