"It seems she is an heiress," continued the bridegroom's voice over his head. "She offered me half her fortune—her whole fortune—if I would go without her! Hey! what answer would you have a man make to that?"
It seemed as if the fiddler could not say; even his ready tongue had no reply.
Steven had meant to take a more dignified attitude with the vagrant; to assume as gentlemanly a mask of indifference as possible. The unexpected meeting (and Steven had no intention but that it should be the last) should be conducted with a rational regard to the distance between them. His heart was no longer on his sleeve for this wayside jackdaw to peck at. But the old power of the fellow's presence, and also his own youthful pain, were too strong for him. Into the silence he dropped a desperate cry:
"Oh, curse you, Geiger-Hans; why could you not have passed me by on the road that evening, and left me to my own life!"
The fiddler looked up at him, still mute; but there was something in his look that went straight to the core of Steven's wounded soul, and brought a sense of comfort and of strength. And yet—strange! it actually seemed as if Steven's sorrow were nothing to the sorrow of Geiger-Hans, this hour. They were enemies no more—they were comrades, struck by the same misfortune. But Geiger-Hans was brave; he knew how to bear his share. Steven felt suddenly ashamed.
"And so you rode away?" said the musician then, laying his hand on the horse's shoulder.
It was to Steven as if that lean hand had kindly touched himself.
"Aye—I got the first nag to be had for money, and rode away, leaving her my carriage and horses and servants. For a Countess Waldorff-Kielmansegg must have her equipage! That episode is closed!"
The rider chucked his reins and set the rested horse to his labour up the hill once more.
Geiger-Hans had remained a second, gazing at the stones in the road; then he roused himself, and caught up the rider in a couple of quick strides. His shoulders were rounded as beneath a burden. Yet Fate had played him too many scurvy tricks for him to indulge in the astounded rebellion of youth. After a while he looked up and spoke again.