Joseph scratches his neck, gives me a sly glance, and says:
"As to that I do not know. Perhaps not for six months yet; perhaps sooner; perhaps even later. I cannot tell. It depends."
I feel that he does not wish to speak. Nevertheless I insist:
"It depends on what?"
He hesitates to answer; then, in a mysterious and, at the same time, somewhat excited tone, he says:
"On a certain matter; on a very important matter."
"But what matter?"
"Oh! on a certain matter, that's all."
This is uttered in a brusque voice,—a voice not of anger exactly, but of impatience. He refuses to explain further.
He says nothing to me of myself. This astonishes me, and causes me a painful disappointment. Can he have changed his mind? Has my curiosity, my hesitation, wearied him? Yet it is very natural that I should be interested in an event in the success or failure of which I am to share. Can the suspicion that I have not been able to hide, my suspicion of the outrage committed by him upon the little Claire, have caused Joseph to reflect further, and brought about a rupture between us? But I feel from the tremor of my heart that my resolution, deferred out of coquetry, out of a disposition to tease, was well taken. To be free, to be enthroned behind a bar, to command others, to know that one is looked at, desired, adored by so many men! And that is not to be? And this dream is to escape me, as all the others have? I do not wish to seem to be throwing myself at Joseph's head, but I wish to know what he has in his mind. I put on a sad face, and I sigh: