In the earnestness of her thoughts she turned her eyes on his ring, and she blushed brightly when with a quick, almost rude movement he hid his hand. "I beg your pardon!" she murmured. "I was not thinking."
"It is I should beg yours," he said quietly. "It is only that I do not want you to come to a false conclusion. This ring--in a word I wear it, but the arms are not mine. That is all."
"Does that apply also," she asked, looking at him ingenuously, "to the pistols you carry, M. des Voeux? Or should I address you--for I saw last evening that they bore a duke's coronet--as your Grace?"
He laughed gaily. "They are mine, but I am not a duke," he said.
"Nor are you M. des Voeux?"
Her acuteness surprised him. "I am afraid, mademoiselle," he said, "that you have a mind to exalt me into a hero of romance--whether I will or no."
She bent over her work to hide her face. "A duke gave them to you, I suppose?" she said.
"That is so," he replied sedately.
"Did you save his life?"
"I did not."