Cigole never made any advances, and never even met half-way those which
Brandon made. He was never off his guard for one instant. Polite,
smiling, furtive, never looking Brandon fairly in the face, he usually
spoke with a profusion of bows, gestures, and commonplaces, adopting, in
fact, that part which is always at once both the easiest and the safest
to play--the non-committal, pure and perfect.

It was cunning, but low cunning after all, and Brandon perceived that,
for one who had some purpose to accomplish, with but a common soul to
sustain him, this was the most ordinary way to do it. A villain of
profounder cunning or of larger spirit would have pursued a different
path. He would have conversed freely and with apparent unreserve; he
would have yielded to all friendly advances, and made them himself; he
would have shown the highest art by concealing art, in accordance with
the hackneyed proverb, "Ars est celare artem."

Brandon despised him as an ordinary villain, and hardly thought it worth
his while to take any particular notice of him, except to watch him in a
general way. But Cigole, on the contrary, was very different. His eyes,
which never met those of Brandon fairly, were constantly watching him.
When moving about the quarter-deck or when sitting in the cabin he
usually had the air of a man who was pretending to be intent on
something else, but in reality watching Brandon's acts or listening to
his words. To any other man the knowledge of this would have been in the
highest degree irksome. But to Brandon it was gratifying, since it
confirmed his suspicions. He saw this man, whose constant efforts were
directed toward not committing himself by word, doing that very thing by
his attitude, his gesture, and the furtive glance of his eye. Brandon,
too, had his part, but it was infinitely greater than that of Cigole,