I broke my word, it is true; but what signifies that?
I obeyed my love; and have I not been richly paid for that obedience?
It was to that obedience I owe her portrait." D'Artagnan was amazed to note by what fragile and unknown threads the destinies of nations and the lives of men are suspended.

He was lost in these reflections when the goldsmith entered.

He was an Irishman--one of the most skillful of his craft, and who himself confessed that he gained a hundred thousand livres a year by the Duke of Buckingham.
"Mr.O'Reilly," said the duke, leading him into the chapel, "look at these diamond studs, and tell me what they are worth apiece." The goldsmith cast a glance at the elegant manner in which they were set, calculated, one with another, what the diamonds were worth, and without hesitation said, "Fifteen hundred pistoles each, my Lord." "How many days would it require to make two studs exactly like them?
You see there are two wanting." "Eight days, my Lord." "I will give you three thousand pistoles apiece if I can have them by the day after tomorrow." "My Lord, they shall be yours." "You are a jewel of a man, Mr.O'Reilly; but that is not all.

These studs cannot be trusted to anybody; it must be done in the palace." "Impossible, my Lord! There is no one but myself can so execute them that one cannot tell the new from the old." "Therefore, my dear Mr.O'Reilly, you are my prisoner.

And if you wish ever to leave my palace, you cannot; so make the best of it.