"I am sure not. You did it quite unconsciously and the honour was enhanced thereby. You honoured me, mejuffrouw," he said while a tone of earnestness crept into his merry voice, "by trusting me--the common thief, the cut-throat, the hired brigand, alone in your presence for a whole hour, while the entire household here was abed and your duenna snoring contentedly in a room with locked door close by. During that hour your tongue did not spare my temper for one moment. For this recognition of manly forbearance and chivalry--even though you choose to deny their existence--do I humbly thank you. Despite--or perhaps because of your harsh estimate of me--you made me feel to-night almost a gentleman." With his habitual elegance of gesture he swept her a deep bow, then without another word or look, and with firm, ringing steps he walked quickly out of the room. CHAPTER XVIII THE START Once the door safely closed behind him, he heaved a deep sigh as if of intense relief and he passed his hand quickly across his brow. "By St. Bavon," he murmured, "my friend Diogenes, thou hast had to face unpleasantness before now--those arquebusiers at Magdeburg were difficult to withstand, those murderous blackguards in the forests of Prague nearly had thy skin, but verdommt be thou, if thou hast had to hold thy temper in bounds like this before. Dondersteen! how I could have crushed that sharp-tongued young vixen till she cried for mercy ... or silenced those venomous lips with a kiss!... I was sore tempted indeed to give her real cause for calling me a knave...." In the tap-room downstairs he found Pythagoras and Socrates curled up on the floor in front of the hearth. They were fast asleep, and Diogenes did not attempt to wake them. He had given them their orders for the next day earlier in the evening and with the promise of 500 golden guilders to be won by implicit obedience the two worthies were not like to disobey. He himself had his promise to his friend Hals to redeem ... the flight along the frozen waterways back to Haarlem, a few hours spent in the studio in the Peuselaarsteeg, then the return flight to rejoin his compeers and the jongejuffrouw at the little hamlet of Houdekerk off the main road; thither he had ordered them to proceed in the early morning there to lie perdu until his return. Houdekerk lay to the east of Leyden and so well off the beaten track that the little party would be safely hidden there during the day;--he intended to be with them again well before midnight of the next day. For the nonce he collected a few necessary provisions which he had ordered to be ready for him--a half bottle of wine, some meat and bread, then he made his way out of the little hostelry and across the courtyard to the stables where the horses had been put up. The night was singularly clear: the waning moon after she had emerged from a bank of low-lying clouds, lit up the surrounding landscape with a radiance that was intensely blue.