As I looked up, I saw the man Lafleur opposite to me. He had his back toward me, but I knew him, and he was just walking into a shop that faced the _café_ and displayed in its windows an assortment of offensive weapons--guns, pistols, and various sorts of knives. Lafleur went in. I sat sipping my coffee. He was there nearly twenty minutes; then he came out and walked leisurely away. I paid my score and strolled over to the shop. I wondered what he had been buying. Dueling pistols for the duke, perhaps! I entered and asked to be shown some penknives. The shopman served me with alacrity. I chose a cheap knife, and then I permitted my gaze to rest on a neat little pistol that lay on the counter. My simple _ruse_ was most effective. In a moment I was being acquainted with all the merits of the instrument, and the eulogy was backed by the information that a gentleman had bought two pistols of the same make not ten minutes before I entered the shop. "Really!" said I. "What for?" "Oh, I don't know, sir. It is a wise thing often to carry one of these little fellows. One never knows." "In case of a quarrel with another gentleman?" "Oh, they are hardly such as we sell for dueling, sir." "Aren't they?" "They are rather pocket pistols--to carry if you are out at night; and we sell many to gentlemen who have occasion in the way of their business to carry large sums of money or valuables about with them. They give a sense of security, sir, even if no occasion arises for their use." "And this gentleman bought two? Who was he?" "I don't know, sir. He gave me no name." "And you didn't know him by sight?" "No, sir; perhaps he is a stranger. But indeed I'm almost that myself: I have but just set up business here." "Is it brisk?" I asked, examining the pistol. "It is not a brisk place, sir," the man answered regretfully. "Let me sell you one, sir!" It happened to be, for the moment, in the way of my business to carry valuables, but I hoped it would not be for long, so that I did not buy a pistol; but I allowed myself to wonder what my friend Lafleur wanted with two--and they were not dueling pistols! If I had been going to keep the diamonds--but then I was not. And, reminded by this reflection, I set out at once for the convent. Now the manner in which the Duchess of Saint-Maclou saw fit to treat me--who was desirous only of serving her--on this occasion went far to make me disgusted with the whole affair into which I had been drawn. It might have been supposed that she would show gratitude; I think that even a little admiration and a little appreciation of my tact would not have been, under the circumstances, out of place. It is not every day that a lady has such a thing as the Cardinal's Necklace rescued from great peril and freely restored, with no claim (beyond that for ordinary civility) on the part of the rescuer.