"Where you know," answered the Chief, making a masonic sign, "The Temple."
The driver looked at the Grand Copt with amazement.
"Excuse me, Thou Supreme, I did not know you," he said, replying with another sign.
"It is not thus with me," replied Cagliostro, with a firm and lofty voice, "innumerable as are those whom the uninitiated eyes see not, I know all from the topmost to the lowest of those who bring the bricks and hew the stones."
The coachman shut the door, got upon the box, and took the carriage at a gallop to St. Claude Street. The carriage was stopped and the door opened with a zeal which testified to the man's respect.
Cagliostro motioned for Gilbert to alight first and as he descended, he said to the jarvey:
"Yes, Master," said the knight of the whip, "and I should have made my report this evening if I had not the luck to meet you."
"Oh, the bystander is not an outsider," returned Cagliostro, smiling.
But Gilbert moved off a little, though he could not help glancing and listening partially. He saw a smile on the hearers's face as the man told his story. He caught the name of Favras and Count Provence, before the report was over, when the magician took out a goldpiece and offered it.
"The Master knows that it is forbidden to receive pay for giving information," he objected.
"I am not paying for your report, it is plain, but for your bringing us," said the conspirator.
"That I can accept. Thank you," he said, taking the coin, "I need not work any more to-day."
He drove away, leaving Gilbert amazed at what he had witnessed, and he crossed the threshold reeling like a tipsy man.
He knew this house from having traversed it years ago under impressive circumstances; little was changed in it, even to the same servant Fritz, only he had aged sixteen years.
Ushered into a sitting room, the count bade his guest take a seat.
The younger man forgot his present curiosity in the memories evoked by this room. Cagliostro looked at him like Mephistopheles regarding Faust in his brown studies.
"This room seems to set you thinking, doctor," he said audibly.
"It does, of the obligations I am under to you."
"Really, you are a strange man," said Gilbert, speaking as much to himself as to the other, "and if reason allowed me to put faith in what we learn from legends, I should be inclined to take you for a magician."