“Why, now she’s on the other tack!” exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise on his companion.
Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs.
“Light him down,” said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. “It’s a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. Show him a light.”
Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said, in a whisper.
“What is it, Nancy, dear?”
“What do you mean?” replied the girl, in the same tone.
“The reason of all this,” replied Fagin. “If he”—he pointed with his skinny fore-finger up the stairs—“is so hard with you (he’s a brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don’t you—”
“Well?” said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers.
“No matter just now. We’ll talk of this again. You have a friend in me, Nance; a staunch friend. I have the means at hand, quiet and close. If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog—like a dog! worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes—come to me. I say, come to me. He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance.”
“I know you well,” replied the girl, without manifesting the least emotion. “Good-night.”