He was speaking French, and in a low tone that sounded like the boom of a distant bell.
Young Strangways bowed acquiescence.
"Be on your guard with Sir Jekyl Marlowe. Tell him nothing. Don't let him be kind to you. He will have no kind motive in being so. Fence with his questions—don't answer them. Remember he is an artful man without any scruple. I know him and all about him."
M. Varbarriere spoke each of these little sentences in an isolated way, as a smoker might, although he was no longer smoking, between his puffs. "Therefore, not a word to him—no obligations—no intimacy. If he catches you by the hand, even by your little finger, in the way of friendship, he'll cling to it, so as so impede your arm, should it become necessary to exert it."
"I don't understand you, sir," said the young man, in a deferential tone, but looking very hard at him.
"You partly don't understand me; the nature of my direction, however, is clear. Observe it strictly."
There was a short silence here.
"I don't understand, sir, what covert hostility can exist between us; that is, why I should, in your phrase, keep my hand free to exert it against him."
"No, I don't suppose you do."
"And I can't help regretting that, if such are our possible relations, I should find myself as a guest under his roof," said the young man, with a pained and almost resentful look.