The two gentlemen returned my bow with well-bred negligence, and I started on my soup. As I finished it, I looked up and saw my companions interchanging glances. Catching my eye, they both looked away in an absent fashion, each the while taking out of his pocket a red silk handkerchief and laying it on the table by him. I turned away for a moment, then suddenly looked again and found their eyes on me, and I fancied that the next moment the eyes wandered from me to the handkerchiefs. I happened to be carrying a red handkerchief myself, and, thinking either that something was in the wind or perhaps that my friends were having a joke at my expense (though, as I said, they looked well-bred men), I took it out of my pocket and, laying it on the table, gazed calmly in front of me, my eyes naturally falling on the fair young man.
He nodded significantly to the older man, and held out his hand to me. I shook hands with him, and went through the same ceremony with the other.
“Ah!” said the young man, speaking in French, “you got her letter?”
I nodded.
“And you are willing?”
The first maxim for a would-be adventurer is always to say “yes” to questions. A “no,” is fatal to further progress.
“Yes,” I answered.
“It will be made worth your while, of course,” he went on.
I thought I ought to resent this suggestion.
“Sir,” I said, “you cannot possibly mean to suggest——”