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. "You can't help regretting, and--you can't help the circumstance," vibrated his Mentor, in a metallic murmur, his cadaverous features wearing the same odd character of deep thought and apathy. "I don't know, with respect to _him_--I know, however, how it has affected me--that I have felt unhappy, and even guilty since this journey commenced, as if I were a traitor and an impostor," said the young man, with a burst of impatience. "Don't, sir, use phrases which reflect back upon _me_," said the other, turning upon him with a sudden sternness. "All you have done is by my direction." The ample black waistcoat heaved and subsided a little faster than before, and the imposing countenance was turned with pallid fierceness upon the young man. "I am sorry, uncle." "So you should--you'll see one day how little it is to me, and how much to you." Here was a pause. The senior turned his face again toward the fire. The little flush that in wrath always touched his forehead subsided slowly. He replaced his foot on the fender, and chose another cigar. "There's a great deal you don't see now that you will presently. I did not want to see Sir Jekyl Marlowe any more than you did or do; but I did want to see this place. You'll know hereafter why. I'd rather not have met him. I'd rather not be his guest. Had he been as usual at Dartbroke, I should have seen all I wanted without that annoyance. It is an accident his being here--another, his having invited me; but no false ideas and no trifling chance shall regulate, much less stop, the action of the machine which I am constructing and will soon put in motion." And with these words he lighted his cigar, and after smoking for a while he lowered it, and said-- "Did Sir Jekyl put any questions to you, with a view to learn particulars about you or me?" "I don't recollect that he did. I rather think not; but Captain Drayton did." "I know, _Smithers_?" "Yes, sir." "With an object?" inquired the elder man.