“Ha! that will not do. From your description of her she will bring ten times the amount. A misfortune, indeed! My own purse is still lighter than yours. I have not a hundred dollars. Pardieu! it is a sad affair.”
D’Hauteville pressed his head between his hands, and remained for some moments silent, apparently in deep meditation. From his manner I could not help believing that he really sympathised with me, and that he was thinking of some plan to assist me.
“After all,” he muttered to himself, just loud enough for me to hear what was said, “if she should not succeed—if she should not find the papers—then she, too, must be a sacrifice. Oh! it is a terrible risk. It might be better not—it might be—”
“Monsieur!” I said, interrupting him, “of what are you speaking?”
“Oh!—ah! pardon me: it is an affair I was thinking of—n’importe. We had better return, Monsieur. It is cold. The atmosphere of this solemn place chills me.”
He said all this with an air of embarrassment, as though he had been speaking his thoughts unintentionally.
Though astonished at what he had uttered, I could not press him for an explanation; but, yielding to his wish, I rose up to depart. I had lost hope. Plainly he had it not in his power to serve me.
At this moment a resource suggested itself to my mind, or rather the forlorn hope of a resource.
I communicated it to my companion.
“I have still these two hundred dollars,” said I, “They are of no more service to me for the purchase of Aurore than if they were so many pebbles. Suppose I try to increase the amount at the gaming-table?”