“Show me that way!” I cried. “I will avail myself of it at once. To tell you the truth, I am sick of the life I have led in this city.”
“I thought,” said du Trémigon, smiling meaningly, “that you were scarcely suited for——”
“What do you mean?” I cried, glad for the chance to vent my indignation upon someone. “Didn’t I bear myself like a gentleman?”
“Oh, quite so, entirely so. You misapprehend me, my dear Burnham,” he protested.
“Well, I dare say you are right,” I replied carelessly, too troubled to quarrel, “I am a sailor. The sea is my world. I am at home there or on my father’s plantation in the Carolinas. But this is nothing to you. The point is, I am in your debt.”
“This ring, Monsieur,” said the Marquis, lifting his hand. “Do you know whose it is?”
“Yours, I suppose, since you won it,” I replied. “It was mine.”
“Pardon me, it was originally mine.”
“What!”
“Mine.”