'Poor creatures! But I dare say they're very good.' Then she paused a moment, and looked into his face. She had undertaken a duty, and she was not the woman to shrink from it. So she told herself at that moment. And yet she was very much afraid of him as she saw the squareness of his forehead, and the set of his mouth. And there was a frown across his brow, as though he were preparing himself to fight. 'You must have found it hard to accommodate yourselves to them, Mr. Caldigate?' 'Not at all.' 'Of course we all know that you are a gentleman.' 'I am much obliged to you; but I do not know any word that requires a definition so much as that. I am going to work hard to earn my bread; and I suppose these people are going to do the same.' 'There always will be some danger in such society,' said Mrs. Callander. 'I hope I may escape any great evil.' 'I hope so too, Mr. Caldigate. You probably have had a long roll of ancestors before you?' 'We all have that;--back to Adam.' 'Ah! but I mean a family roll, of which you ought to be proud;--all ladies and gentlemen.' 'Upon my word I don't know.' 'So I hear, and I have no doubt it is true.' Then she paused, looking again into his face. It was very square, and his lips were hard, and there was a gleam of anger in his eyes. She wished herself back again in her own part of the ship; but she had boasted to Miss Green that she was not the woman to give up a duty when she had undertaken it. Though she was frightened, still she must go on. 'I hope you will excuse me, Mr. Caldigate.' 'I am sure you will not say anything that I cannot excuse.' 'Don't you think--' Then she paused. She had looked into his face again, and was so little satisfied that she did not dare to go on. He would not help her in the least, but stood there looking at her, with something of a smile stealing over the hardness of his face, but with such an expression that the smile was even worse than the hardness. 'Were you going to speak to me about another lady, Mrs. Callander?' 'I was. That is what I was going to speak of--' She was anxious to remonstrate against that word lady, but her courage failed her. 'Then don't you think that perhaps you had better leave it alone. I am very much obliged to you, and all that kind of thing; and as to myself, I really shouldn't care what you said. Any good advice would be taken most gratefully,--if it didn't affect any one else. But you might say things of the lady in question which I shouldn't bear patiently.' 'She can't be your equal.' 'I won't hear even that patiently. You know nothing about her, except that she is a second-class passenger,--in which matter she is exactly my equal. If you come to that, don't you think that you are degrading yourself in coming here and talking to me? I am not your equal.' 'But you are.'