The gentle blue eyes were again filled with wonder, and presently the priest's intellectual face relaxed into a shadowy smile, which did not affect his thin red lips.
“You are very good,” he murmured simply.
Christian did not hear this remark. He had turned away to call Grall towards him, and was about to move towards the body lying on the hatch, when the priest called him back.
“Monsieur,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Tell me,” continued René Drucquer quickly, as if in doubt, “are you Christian Vellacott?”
“Of course!”
The priest looked relieved, and at the same time he appeared to be making an effort to restrain himself, as if he had been betrayed into a greater show of feeling than was desirable. When he at length spoke in reply to the Englishman's obvious desire for some explanation of the strange question, his voice was singularly cold, and modulated in such a manner as to deprive it of any expression, while his eyes were fixed on the deck.
“You are not such as I expected,” he said.
Christian looked down at him with straightforward keenness, and he saw the priest's eyelids move uneasily beneath his gaze. Mixing with many men as he had done, he had acquired a certain mental sureness of touch, like that of an artist with his brush when he has handled many subjects and many effects. He divined that René Drucquer had been led to expect a violent, head strong man, and he could not restrain a smile as he turned away. Before going, however, he said: