So that one day, in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessary
sum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own select
portion of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among a
handful of lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who were
going to Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, for
he knew so much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give them the
information they desired. His importance lured him to pose as a
seigneur, though he had no claim to the title. He did not call himself
Seigneur in so many words, but when others referred to him as the
Seigneur, and it came to his ears, he did not correct it; and when he was
addressed as such he did not reprove.

Thus, when he brought the two refugees from the forecastle and assured
his fellow-passengers that they were Spanish folk of good family exiled
by persecution, his generosity was acclaimed, even while all saw he was
enamoured of Carmen. Once among the first-class passengers, father and
daughter maintained reserve, and though there were a few who saw that
they were not very far removed above peasants, still the dress of the
girl, which was good--she had been a maid in a great nobleman's family
--was evidence in favour of the father's story. Sebastian Dolores
explained his own workman's dress as having been necessary for his
escape.

Only one person gave Jean Jacques any warning. This was the captain
of the Antoine. He was a Basque, he knew the Spanish people well--the
types, the character, the idiosyncrasies; and he was sure that Sebastian
Dolores and his daughter belonged to the lower clerical or higher working
class, and he greatly inclined towards the former. In that he was right,
because Dolores, and his father before him, had been employed in the
office of a great commercial firm in Cadiz, and had repaid much