Turning round on his chair and glancing down the street, Boisfleury saw that a burly, bull-necked man was coming along it with his light cloak thrown over one arm, since the evening had not yet become cool enough for it to be worn, and heard the end of the scabbard of his rapier scraping the cobble stones of the road as he walked, since there were no footpaths in the Rue des Franc Bourgeois. Yet, bull-necked and burly though this man might be, there was about him something that proclaimed him of better metal than those whom he was undoubtedly coming to meet, and also that, even as they were men accustomed to obey, so he was one well used to command. For there was in him an indescribable yet easily recognised air of command, a look, an air, that told plainly enough that this man had in his life given more orders, with the certainty of those orders being obeyed, than he had ever taken. In age he was perhaps fifty, or a year or two less, he was plainly but well dressed, and, in spite of the ruggedness of his appearance, he was a well-favoured, good-looking man. He drew near to the Taverne Gabrielle now and entered it as Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury each rose to their feet and saluted him in a manner different from that of the other, yet typical of each. The former, who, though a younger man than his companion, was evidently the principal of the two, welcomed the Captain La Truaumont more _en camarade_ than the other; more familiarly indeed, as though feeling that, in absolute truth, he was his equal. The latter rose with some sort of quiet dignity which, while expressing the fact that he considered himself as quite a humble instrument to be bought by money, was not without a certain self-respect. Also, that dignity seemed to suggest that, once, the man's position had been different from, and better than, it was now or would ever be again. "So," La Truaumont said, "you keep the rendezvous. It is very well. Unhappily, I have made it too late. The citizens have supped, their wives will be putting the children to bed, they will be coming forth to drink their flask and discuss their neighbours', and their own, doings. This tavern will be full ere long; we had best go elsewhere since there is much to talk over." "There is Van den Enden's," Fleur de Mai said. "Plenty of rooms there where none can overhear or intrude! What say you, noble captain? You know the place and the man. Likewise, _she_ is there and--well! she is in the affair and deeply too." "'Twill do. It is there I have told the Chief I will be between ten and eleven. He will be back by then from making his last arrangements for the departure of that other." After which he said, while addressing both men, "You set out to-morrow night." "All nights are the same to us--is it not so, Boisfleury?" Fleur de Mai exclaimed, slapping his somewhat melancholy comrade on the back as though to hearten him up.