“You will be to me what I find in you,” I answered—“just that and no more. It may be anything or nothing; but you will not know, whatever name I call you by. Still, ‘cousin’ is a good workaday title, and we will agree to compromise on that.”
She rounded her eyes at me.
“You are very rude and very peremptory all of a sudden.”
“No. Only wise in my trust, Cousin. When I accepted it, I accepted it on its professed merits. Perhaps you might, if you would, put a different complexion on those. You must remember that until yesterday I had hardly known of your existence, save in an abstract way; and then suddenly this business was exploded on me. I should like, now we have settled down to it, some confirmation of its details from your lips—as, for instance, the fact of your personal peril. Do you really go in fear for your life?”
She had dropped her eyes, and sat silently, sullenly perhaps, wreathing her fingers together.
“I should like an answer,” I said.
She looked up quickly—defiantly, I thought.
“Yes,” she said—“your tone, I know perfectly well, is full of mockery and derision; but he would have me killed if he knew where I was.”
I drew in my breath a little, still, I am afraid, incredulous.
“Very well,” I said. “Whatever my tone may be, your belief shall be my law. But then comes in another question. Any port, we know, in a storm; hence this descent on the Rue de Fleurus. But, now we have had time to breathe and look around——”