The seigneur spread his hands.
“But when the brute has a few hundred men behind him!—”
“Well, and no matter; Croquart is vain enough to take a challenge from a Breton noble.”
Tinteniac smiled, as though any mood of hers had magic for him.
“You trouble too much about this butcher-boy,” he said; “he will feel the rope like most of his brother thieves.”
“Ah, sire, I see, your hands are too white—”
“Too white?”
“To soil themselves with such as Croquart.”
Tinteniac’s stateliness appeared unruffled by the impatience in her voice. An aristocrat, he saw no great glory in hunting down this Flemish butcher-boy, who robbed towns and fed his men on the peasants’ corn, a fellow whose head was rancid with grease and whose breath stank of the nearest tavern. He would be taken and hanged in due season by the providence of God; but as for making an adventurous romance out of Croquart’s capture, Tinteniac, with his refined breeding, was not inspired to such a quest.
“The true chivalry”—and he spoke without haughtiness—“is of the heart, not of the arm.”