"My niece will keep shop, sir, while I am out," Spantz explained, taking
his hat from a peg behind the door. Truxton could scarcely restrain a
smile as he glanced over his queer little old guest. He looked eighty
but was as sprightly as a man of forty. A fine companion for a youth of
twenty-six in search of adventure!

They paused near the door until the old man's niece appeared at the back
of the shop. King's first glance at the girl was merely a casual one.
His second was more or less in the nature of a stare of amazement.

A young woman of the most astounding beauty, attired in the black and
red of the Graustark middle classes, was slowly approaching from the
shadowy recesses at the end of the shop. She gave him but a cursory
glance, in which no interest was apparent, and glided quietly into the
little nook behind the counter, almost at his elbow. His heart enjoyed a
lively thump. Here was the first noticeably good-looking woman he had
seen in Edelweiss, and, by the powers, she was a sword-maker's niece!

The old man looked sharply at him for an instant, and a quick little
smile writhed in and out among the mass of wrinkles. Instead of passing
directly out of the shop, Spantz stopped a moment to give the girl some
suddenly recalled instruction. Truxton King, you may be sure, did not
precede the old man into the street. He deliberately removed his hat and
waited most politely for age to go before youth, in the meantime blandly
gazing upon the face of this amazing niece.

Across the square, at one of the tables, he awaited his chance and a
plausible excuse for questioning the old man without giving offence.
Somewhere back in his impressionable brain there was growing a distinct
hope that this beautiful young creature with the dreamy eyes was