I a Scottish gentleman of blood and coat armour, and he a mechanic of Tours!" Such were the thoughts which hastily traversed the mind of young Durward; while Maitre Pierre said with a smile, and at the same time patting Jacqueline's heed, from which hung down her long tresses, "This young man will serve me, Jacqueline, thou mayst withdraw.

I will tell thy negligent kinswoman she does ill to expose thee to be gazed on unnecessarily." "It was only to wait on you," said the maiden.

"I trust you will not be displeased with my kinswoman, since"-- "Pasques dieu!" said the merchant, interrupting her, but not harshly, "do you bandy words with me, you brat, or stay you to gaze upon the youngster here ?--Begone--he is noble, and his services will suffice me." Jacqueline vanished; and so much was Quentin Durward interested in her sudden disappearance that it broke his previous thread of reflection, and he complied mechanically when Maitre Pierre said, in the tone of one accustomed to be obeyed, as he threw himself carelessly upon a large easy chair, "Place that tray beside me." The merchant then let his dark eyebrows sink over his keen eyes so that the last became scarce visible, or but shot forth occasionally a quick and vivid ray, like those of the sun setting behind a dark cloud, through which its beams are occasionally darted, but singly and for an instant.
"That is a beautiful creature," said the old man at last, raising his head, and looking steadily and firmly at Quentin, when he put the question,--"a lovely girl to be the servant of an auberge [an inn]?
She might grace the board of an honest burgess; but 'tis a vile education, a base origin." It sometimes happens that a chance shot will demolish a noble castle in the air, and the architect on such occasions entertains little goodwill towards him who fires it, although the damage on the offender's part may be wholly unintentional.

Quentin was disconcerted, and was disposed to be angry--he himself knew not why--with this old man, for acquainting him that this beautiful creature was neither more nor less than what her occupation announced; the servant of the auberge--an upper servant, indeed, and probably a niece of the landlord, or such like; but still a domestic, and obliged to comply with the humour of the customers, and particularly of Maitre Pierre, who probably had sufficiency of whims, and was rich enough to ensure their being attended to.
The thought, the lingering thought, again returned on him, that he ought to make the old gentleman understand the difference betwixt their conditions, and call on him to mark, that, how rich soever he might be, his wealth put him on no level with a Durward of Glen Houlakin.

Yet, whenever he looked on Maitre Pierre's countenance with such a purpose, there was, notwithstanding the downcast look, pinched features, and mean and miserly dress, something which prevented the young man from asserting the superiority over the merchant which he conceived himself to possess.