‘You look hardly strong enough for such hard labour,’ said Mrs Villiers, doubtfully eyeing the slender figure of the young man. ‘Your companion, I think, will do, but you—’
‘I, Madame, am like the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin,’ replied Vandeloup, gaily; ‘but, unfortunately, I am now compelled by necessity to work, and though I should prefer to earn my bread in an easier manner, beggars,’—with a characteristic shrug, which did not escape Madame’s eye—cannot be choosers.’
‘You are French?’ she asked quickly, in that language.
‘Yes, Madame,’ he replied in the same tongue, ‘both my friend and myself are from Paris, but we have not been long out here.’
‘Humph,’ Madame leaned her head on her hand and thought, while Vandeloup looked at her keenly, and remembered what Slivers had said.
‘She is, indeed, a handsome woman,’ he observed, mentally; ‘my lines will fall in pleasant places, if I remain here.’
Mrs Villiers rather liked the looks of this young man; there was a certain fascination about him which few women could resist, and Madame, although steeled to a considerable extent by experience, was yet a woman. His companion, however, she did not care about—he had a sullen and lowering countenance, and looked rather dangerous.
‘What is your name?’ she asked the young man.
‘Gaston Vandeloup.’
‘You are a gentleman?’