They came to a gap in the hedge, which brought them close to the strollers.
'Gentlemen, can you enlighten me as to the nearest way to Eborsham?' asked Mr. Elgood, with a grandiose air, which the prolonged exercise of his avocation had made second nature.
The elder of the strangers stared at him blankly, with that unseeing gaze of the deep thinker, and went on pulling at his blackened pipe. The younger smiled kindly, and made haste to answer, with a shy eagerness—just a little stammer in his speech at first—which was not unpleasing.
'I really am at a loss to direct you,' he said. 'We are strangers here ourselves—only came to Eborsham last night.'
'For the races, I opine?' interrupted Mr. Elgood.
'Not exactly for the races,' replied the young man, doubtfully.
'You came for the races, Jim,' said the taller stranger, looking down at his companion as from an altitude of wisdom and experience. 'I came to see that you were not fleeced. There are no rogues like the rogues that haunt a racecourse.'
This with a dark glance at the actor.
'He looks the image of a tout,' thought the tall stranger. His fancies had been up aloft in his own particular cloudland when the wayfarers accosted him, and he was slowly coming down to the level of work-a-day life. Only this instant had he become conscious of the girl's presence.
Justina stood in the shadow of her father's bulky figure, making herself as narrow as she possibly could. Her detractors in the theatre found fault with that narrowness of Justina's. She had been disadvantageously likened to gas-pipes, May-poles, and other unsubstantial objects, and was considered a mere profile of a girl, an outline sketch, only worth half the salary that might have been given to a plumper damsel.