"If you had not come in late this morning, I should have let you know that she was there, and then you would not have looked so taken back. She noticed how surprised you were."
He had managed to give them two little knocks: First, there was a gentle scolding for them being late; secondly, he had let them see that he, a foreman, had noticed that they had been unable to hide their discomfiture and that the girl had noticed it, too. And they were M. Vulfran's nephews! Ah! ha!
"M. Vulfran told me yesterday that he had taken that girl to live at the chateau with him, and that in the future she would work in his office."
"But who is the girl?"
"That's what I'd like to know. I don't think your uncle knows either. He told me he wanted someone to be with him whom he could trust."
"Hasn't he got us?" asked Casimir.
"That is just what I said to him. I mentioned you both, and do you know what he replied?"
He wanted to pause to give more effect to his words, but he was afraid that they would turn their backs upon him before he had said what he wanted.
"'Oh, my nephews,' he said, 'and what are they?' From the tone in which he said those few words I thought it better not to reply," continued Talouel. "He told me then that he intended to have that girl up at the chateau with him because there was someone trying to tempt her to tell something that she should not tell. He said he knew that she could be trusted, but he said he didn't like others that he could not trust to put the girl in such a position. He said she had already proved to him that she could be trusted. I wonder who he meant had tried to tempt her?
"I thought it my duty to tell you this, because while M. Edmond is away you two take his place," added Talouel.