It was with a queer commingling of pleasure and vexation that he entered the little chamber sacred to the birds, beasts, racquets, golf-clubs, and general young ladies’ litter.  Ferrand was standing underneath the cage of a canary, his hands folded on his pinched-up hat, a nervous smile upon his lips.  He was dressed in Shelton’s old frock-coat, tightly buttoned, and would have cut a stylish figure but far his look of travel.  He wore a pair of pince-nez, too, which somewhat veiled his cynical blue eyes, and clashed a little with the pagan look of him.  In the midst of the strange surroundings he still preserved that air of knowing, and being master of, his fate, which was his chief attraction.

“I ’m glad to see you,” said Shelton, holding out his hand.

“Forgive this liberty,” began Ferrand, “but I thought it due to you after all you’ve done for me not to throw up my efforts to get employment in England without letting you know first.  I’m entirely at the end of my resources.”

The phrase struck Shelton as one that he had heard before.

“But I wrote to you,” he said; “did n’t you get my letter?”

A flicker passed across the vagrant’s face; he drew the letter from his pocket and held it out.

“Here it is, monsieur.”

Shelton stared at it.

“Surely,” said he, “I sent a cheque?”

Ferrand did not smile; there was a look about him as though Shelton by forgetting to enclose that cheque had done him a real injury.

Shelton could not quite hide a glance of doubt.

“Of course,” he said, “I—­I—­meant to enclose a cheque.”

Too subtle to say anything, Ferrand curled his lip.  “I am capable of much, but not of that,” he seemed to say; and at once Shelton felt the meanness of his doubt.

“Stupid of me,” he said.

“I had no intention of intruding here,” said Ferrand; “I hoped to see you in the neighbourhood, but I arrive exhausted with fatigue.  I’ve eaten nothing since yesterday at noon, and walked thirty miles.”  He shrugged his shoulders.  “You see, I had no time to lose before assuring myself whether you were here or not.”

“Of course—­” began Shelton, but again he stopped.

“I should very much like,” the young foreigner went on, “for one of your good legislators to find himself in these country villages with a penny in his pocket.  In other countries bakers are obliged to sell you an equivalent of bread for a penny; here they won’t sell you as much as a crust under twopence.  You don’t encourage poverty.”

“What is your idea now?” asked Shelton, trying to gain time.

“As I told you,” replied Ferrand, “there ’s nothing to be done at Folkestone, though I should have stayed there if I had had the money to defray certain expenses”; and again he seemed to reproach his patron with the omission of that cheque.  “They say things will certainly be better at the end of the month.  Now that I know English well, I thought perhaps I could procure a situation for teaching languages.”