Messer Hugolin tied up the document with a piece of tape, labelled it with the date of receipt, and laid it away in a pigeon-hole.
"Well?" said Constans, interrogatively.
"Do you want me to put myself within reach of the Gray Wolf's paws?" retorted Messer Hugolin, shrewdly. "I was flayed badly enough the last time the Black Swan cast anchor before Croye, and I am not paying between rent-days."
"The year is almost up," urged Constans, insistently.
"I have lived my life," returned the old man, with sombre fixity of resolve, "and these things do not interest me. I have other use for my hands than to keep them stretched out idly in the dark."
"But that letter—a mother pleading for her child. You have but to give the word—there are men who will go, and gladly."
"I doubt it not, for there are always drones a-plenty around a beehive. But why should I spend my good, red gold to make a beggar's holiday?"
Constans felt his cheeks burn. "Their blood is redder than your gold," he said. "And if they are not afraid to risk——"
"What has cost them nothing and for whose loss there is quick repair in a few square inches of sticking-plaster. Tush! boy, you speak of these things as one who dreams visions at noonday. While I—what I know, I know. There is but one thing precious in the world, and that is what a man holds safely in his strong-box. Why should I spend myself for naught?"
"The girl is your niece—your flesh and blood."