Jan shook his head. “It never will again; and the debts haunt him. But all that, as I tell him, is a thing of the past. His creditors have agreed to look to me and wait.”
“All of them?” queried Nicholas.
“All of them I could discover,” laughed Jan.
Nicholas Snyders pushed back his chair and looked at Jan with a smile upon his wrinkled face. “And so you and Christina have arranged it all?”
“With your consent, sir,” answered Jan.
“You will wait for that?” asked Nicholas.
“We should like to have it, sir.” Jan smiled, but the tone of his voice fell agreeably on Nicholas Snyders' ear. Nicholas Snyders loved best beating the dog that, growled and showed its teeth.
“Better not wait for that,” said Nicholas Snyders. “You might have to wait long.”
Jan rose, an angry flush upon his face. “So nothing changes you, Nicholas Snyders. Have it your own way, then.”
“You will marry her in spite of me?”
“In spite of you and of your friends the fiends, and of your master the Devil!” flung out Jan. For Jan had a soul that was generous and brave and tender and excessively short-tempered. Even the best of souls have their failings.
“I am sorry,” said old Nicholas.
“I am glad to hear it,” answered Jan.
“I am sorry for your mother,” explained Nicholas. “The poor dame, I fear, will be homeless in her old age. The mortgage shall be foreclosed, Jan, on your wedding-day. I am sorry for your father, Jan. His creditors, Jan—you have overlooked just one. I am sorry for him, Jan. Prison has always been his dread. I am sorry even for you, my young friend. You will have to begin life over again. Burgomaster Allart is in the hollow of my hand. I have but to say the word, your ship is mine. I wish you joy of your bride, my young friend. You must love her very dearly—you will be paying a high price for her.”
It was Nicholas Snyders' grin that maddened Jan. He sought for something that, thrown straight at the wicked mouth, should silence it, and by chance his hand lighted on the pedlar's silver flask. In the same instance Nicholas Snyders' hand had closed upon it also. The grin had died away.
“Sit down,” commanded Nicholas Snyders. “Let us talk further.” And there was that in his voice that compelled the younger man's obedience.
“You wonder, Jan, why I seek always anger and hatred. I wonder at times myself. Why do generous thoughts never come to me, as to other men! Listen, Jan; I am in a whimsical mood. Such things cannot be, but it is a whim of mine to think it might have been. Sell me your soul, Jan, sell me your soul, that I, too, may taste this love and gladness that I hear about. For a little while, Jan, only for a little while, and I will give you all you desire.”
The old man seized his pen and wrote.
“See, Jan, the ship is yours beyond mishap; the mill goes free; your father may hold up his head again. And all I ask, Jan, is that you drink to me, willing the while that your soul may go from you and become the soul of old Nicholas Snyders—for a little while, Jan, only for a little while.”
With feverish hands the old man had drawn the stopper from the pedlar's flagon, had poured the wine into twin glasses. Jan's inclination was to laugh, but the old man's eagerness was almost frenzy. Surely he was mad; but that would not make less binding the paper he had signed. A true man does not jest with his soul, but the face of Christina was shining down on Jan from out the gloom.
“You will mean it?” whispered Nicholas Snyders.
“May my soul pass from me and enter into Nicholas Snyders!” answered Jan, replacing his empty glass upon the table. And the two stood looking for a moment into one another's eyes.
And the high candles on the littered desk flickered and went out, as though a breath had blown them, first one and then the other.
“I must be getting home,” came the voice of Jan from the darkness. “Why did you blow out the candles?”
“We can light them again from the fire,” answered Nicholas. He did not add that he had meant to ask that same question of Jan. He thrust them among the glowing logs, first one and then the other; and the shadows crept back into their corners.
“You will not stop and see Christina?” asked Nicholas.
“Not to-night,” answered Jan.
“The paper that I signed,” Nicholas reminded him—“you have it?”
“I had forgotten it,” Jan answered.
The old man took it from the desk and handed it to him. Jan thrust it into his pocket and went out. Nicholas bolted the door behind him and returned to his desk; sat long there, his elbow resting on the open ledger.
Nicholas pushed the ledger aside and laughed. “What foolery! As if such things could be! The fellow must have bewitched me.”
Nicholas crossed to the fire and warmed his hands before the blaze. “Still, I am glad he is going to marry the little lass. A good lad, a good lad.”
Nicholas must have fallen asleep before the fire. When he opened his eyes, it was to meet the grey dawn. He felt cold, stiff, hungry, and decidedly cross. Why had not Christina woke him up and given him his supper. Did she think he had intended to pass the night on a wooden chair? The girl was an idiot. He would go upstairs and tell her through the door just what he thought of her.
His way upstairs led through the kitchen. To his astonishment, there sat Christina, asleep before the burnt-out grate.
“Upon my word,” muttered Nicholas to himself, “people in this house don't seem to know what beds are for!”
But it was not Christina, so Nicholas told himself. Christina had the look of a frightened rabbit: it had always irritated him. This girl, even in her sleep, wore an impertinent expression—a delightfully impertinent expression. Besides, this girl was pretty—marvellously pretty. Indeed, so pretty a girl Nicholas had never seen in all his life before. Why had the girls, when Nicholas was young, been so entirely different! A sudden bitterness seized Nicholas: it was as though he had just learnt that long ago, without knowing it, he had been robbed.
The child must be cold. Nicholas fetched his fur-lined cloak and wrapped it about her.
There was something else he ought to do. The idea came to him while drawing the cloak around her shoulders, very gently, not to disturb her—something he wanted to do, if only he could think what it was. The girl's lips were parted. She appeared to be speaking to him, asking him to do this thing—or telling him not to do it. Nicholas could not be sure which. Half a dozen times he turned away, and half a dozen times stole back to where she sat sleeping with that delightfully impertinent expression on her face, her lips parted. But what she wanted, or what it was he wanted, Nicholas could not think.
Perhaps Christina would know. Perhaps Christina would know who she was and how she got there. Nicholas climbed the stairs, swearing at them for creaking.
Christina's door was open. No one was in the room; the bed had not been slept upon. Nicholas descended the creaking stairs.
The girl was still asleep. Could it be Christina herself? Nicholas examined the delicious features one by one. Never before, so far as he could recollect, had he seen the girl; yet around her neck—Nicholas had not noticed it before—lay Christina's locket, rising and falling as she breathed. Nicholas knew it well; the one thing belonging to her mother Christina had insisted on keeping. The one thing about which she had ever defied him. She would never have parted with that locket. It must be Christina herself. But what had happened to her? Or to himself. Remembrance rushed in upon him. The odd pedlar! The scene with Jan! But surely all that had been a dream? Yet there upon the littered desk still stood the pedlar's silver flask, together with the twin stained glasses.
Nicholas tried to think, but his brain was in a whirl. A ray of sunshine streaming through the window fell across the dusty room. Nicholas had never seen the sun, that he could recollect. Involuntarily he stretched his hands towards it, felt a pang of grief when it vanished, leaving only the grey light. He drew the rusty bolts, flung open the great door. A strange world lay before him, a new world of lights and shadows, that wooed him with their beauty—a world of low, soft voices that called to him. There came to him again that bitter sense of having been robbed.