Was he, in actual fact, going home to-morrow? Or was he called upon to undergo the supreme anguish of cheated hope? To see his prison-bars opening—only to slam again in his face?
As, still unstrung from shock, he looked round the room, he was a prey of minor optical delusions. Madame seemed to have swollen in bulk—the apartment to have grown distinctly smaller. He hated it with the savage hatred of a convict for his concrete cell.
Inaction became unendurable, and he pushed back his chair.
‘I’m going out, madame.’
‘No, m’sieur. No, no!’
‘Why not?’
Suspicion stabbed him anew at madame’s vehement outcry. Yet her next words were reassuring by reason of their sound common sense.
‘Because, m’sieur, it is too late. See, it wants but a little to midnight. It might arouse suspicion in this place, where every brick has an eye. To-morrow, you return to your own country. How imprudent to risk your liberty thus, at the eleventh hour!’
His head approved the wisdom of the woman’s words. Once again, he saw her as she was—callous, mercenary, possibly—but, for the rest, an ordinary hard-working housewife of her class.