He, therefore, concluded that Cecile had intrusted her money to Joe.
Had he not been so very sure of this--had he for a moment believed
that a little child so helpless and so young as Cecile carried about
with her so much gold--I am afraid he would have simply watched his
opportunity, have stifled the cries of the little creature, have torn
her treasure from her grasp, and decamped. But Anton believed that
Joe was the purse-bearer, and Joe was a more formidable person to
deal with. Joe was very tall and strong for his age; whereas Anton
was a remarkably little and slender man. Joe, too, watched the
children day and night like a dragon. Anton felt that in a hand-to-hand
fight Joe would have the best of it. Also, to declare his knowledge
of the existence of the purse, he would have to disclose his English
residence, and his acquaintance with the English tongue. That fact
once made known might have seriously injured his prospects with
M. Dupois' steward, and, in place of anything better, he wished
to keep in the good graces of this family for the present.
Still so clever a person as Anton, _alias_ Watts, could go
warily to work, and after thinking it all over, he decided to make
himself agreeable to Joe. In their very first interview he set his
own mind completely at rest as to the fact that the children carried
money with them; that the large sum spoken of by Jane Parsons was
still intact, and still in their possession.
Not that poor Joe had revealed a word; but when Anton led up to the
subject of money there was an eager, too eager avoidance of the
theme, joined to a troubled and anxious expression in his boyish
face, which told the clever and bad man all he wanted.
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