Duke John continued to keep his eyes averted from the men who sought his presence.  He teased a little lop-eared spaniel, and nipped it till it yelped.  But the President of Brittany never took his eyes off the strangers, examining them with a bold, keen, remorseless glance, in which, however, there was neither evil nor the tolerance of it.  Not a man to make himself greatly beloved, this Pierre de l’Hopital.

And little he cared whether or no.  In Brittany men did his will.  That was enough.

James Douglas was nettled at the inattention of the Duke.  He was of that large and sanguine nature which is at once easily touched by any discourtesy and very quick to resent it.

“My Lord of Brittany,” he began in a loud clear voice, and in his usual immaculate French, “I claim your attention for a little.  I come to lay before you that which touches your kin and kingdom.”

Duke John continued to play with the lap-dog, and in addition he formed his mouth to whistle.  But he never whistled.

“His Grace of Brittany will now give you his undivided attention,” said the President from behind, without moving a muscle either of his body or of his face, save those necessary to propel the words from his vocal cords.

The brow of Duke John flushed with anger, but he did not disobey.  He raised his head and gazed straight at the three men, fixing his eyes, however, with a studied discourtesy upon Sholto instead of upon their natural leader and spokesman.

Behind his chair Pierre de l’Hopital let his deep inscrutable eye droop once upon his master, and his spare and sinewy wrists twitched as he held his arms by his side.  He seemed upon the point of dealing ducal dignity a box on the ear both sound and improving.

“I am the Lord James of Douglas and Avondale,” said the leader of the Scots with grave dignity, “and I had three years ago the honour of breaking a lance with you in the tilt-yard of Poitiers, when in that town your Grace met with the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy.”

At this John of Brittany looked up quickly.

“I do not remember you,” he said, “and I never forget faces.  Even Pierre will grant me that.”

“Your Grace may possibly remember, then, the dint in your shoulder that you got from the point of a spear, caused by the breaking of the links of your shoulder-piece.”

A light kindled in the Duke’s eyes.

“What,” he cried, “you are the young Scot who fought so well and kept his shield up day by day over the door of a common sergeant’s tent, having no pavilion of his own, till it was all over dints like an alehouse tankard?”

“As were also the knights who dinted it,” grimly commented Pierre de l’Hopital.

The Lord James of Avondale bowed.

“I am that knight,” he said quietly and with gravity.

“But,” cried the Duke, “I knew not then that you were of Douglas.  That is a great name in Poitiers, and had we known your race and quality we had not been so ready with our shield-rapping.”