at last in a curt voice, pushing up
his cap.
"May God and the Virgin keep you in their good graces!" replied the
silversmith humbly, conducting the king to the door of the house.
After so long a friendship, the two men found a barrier raised between
them by suspicion and gold; though they had always been like one man
on the two points of gold and suspicion. But they knew each other so
well, they had so completely the habit, one may say, of each other,
that the king could divine, from the tone in which Cornelius uttered
the words, "As you please, sire," the repugnance that his visits would
henceforth cause to the silversmith, just as the latter recognized a
declaration of war in the "Adieu, my crony," of the king.
Thus Louis XI. and his torconnier parted much in doubt as to the
conduct they ought in future to hold to each other. The monarch
possessed the secret of the Fleming; but on the other hand, the latter
could, by his connections, bring about one of the finest acquisitions
that any king of France had ever made; namely, that of the domains of
the house of Burgundy, which the sovereigns of Europe were then
coveting.
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