"Are you really ... going?" she asked him, after a while.
The intentness of her look and the wondrous depth of her great eyes—stirred now to troubled speculation—sent his purpose reeling aslant again.
"Ah!" He gave her arm a protesting squeeze. "She 's not going to give her sorrow away until she 's quite sure there 's genuine necessity for it. She 's a very wise and very cautious little woman. She wants good security for any small advances of commiseration. If I did n't know for certain that her name was what it is ... I should be inclined to think they called her Rachel or Leah or Abigail or Zipporah—with something of Benjamin or Isaacs or Ishmael about it. Never mind. I will trust her with my gold watch, and she shall give me what she likes on it. Yes, little Israelite ... it was the truth that this unfortunate Gentile spoke this afternoon. He knows it was ... because he does n't speak it so often but that he can tell the taste. He 's been loafing about happily for a long time ... but the eternal policeman Destiny has given him the office to move on, and it seems he 'll have to move. It 's no use getting cross with the law. Is she sorry for him now, this little Usurer?"
"But you 're not going away ... at once?" she asked him, in a startled voice.
"My gracious! What an out-and-out extortioner she is," the Spawer exclaimed, with an assumption of admiring tribute. "She won't advance me a cent of sympathy until she knows the term of the loan. If I say I 'm going at once, she 'll give me a better price of pity than if the advance is to drag on over an indefinite period of weeks." He made pretence to throw his chin in the air and laugh with pleasure. "Honestly, little Rebecca," he told her, looking down once more, "I don't want to humbug a penny more out of you than you think you ought to give. At present I can't say when I go ... whether I have to go to-morrow, the day after, the day after that ... or next week even. It all depends on a letter. I 'm a condemned man, under indefinite reprieve." He paused for a moment, balancing whether he should say the next thing on his mind. "As a matter of fact, little woman...." He turned his face towards her with the engaging air of candor that seemingly could not deny itself. "... It 's no use trying to stuff you. You 're too sharp to take a dummy watch with the works out, or a gilt sixpence. So ... as it 's not a bit of good trying to be anything else ... I 'll be frank with you. I 'll tell you a secret. It 's a big one—all about myself. Do you think you can keep a secret?"
"I 'll try," said the girl, with her eyes fixed apprehensively on his lips.
"Well, then..." he said. "I 'm in your hands. I 'm going to do a very silly thing."
Did a tremor of apprehensive pain, like the very ghost of a shiver, run up the arm that he held? or was it his own mind, that through a feeling of sympathy sought to attribute its knowledge to hers?
"You 'll think me a frightful ass, no doubt, when I tell you what it is. Can you guess?"
The girl seemed to concentrate her look upon him, but whether the true answer had flashed across her mind, or whether the flash of divination merely served to dazzle her and make her ignorance still darker, so that she looked for enlightenment from him, he could not tell; but she said "No," and gave up his riddle with a shake of the head.