What do you understand by the following statements?

He smiled uncomfortably. "Just plans, sir," he answered in a low voice.

One morning when the author went to Nicola and Jacopo to get his shoes shined, he said to Nicola that the way he had seen Nicola and Jacopo work, they must have earned quite some money. The author also observed that they did not spend money on clothes and had a simple diet for their meals. He asked Nicola what he did with his money. After hearing what the author had said, he turned uneasy and coloured deeply under his sunburn and grew pale. The author then asked him if he was planning to immigrate to the States. Nicola said that they would like to go to States, but they had some current plans in the place where they were.