“None of those gentlemen want to marry his daughter,” murmured Bertram. “It is not the director I fear, but the father. I have so little to bring her. Only my character and my devotion.”
“Well, well, pluck up courage, my boy. I have hopes yet that the whole matter can be referred to some mistake easily explainable when once it is discovered. Mistakes, even amongst the honest and the judicious, are not so uncommon as one is apt to imagine. I, myself, have known of one which if providence had not interfered, might have led to doubts seemingly as inconsistent as yours. To-morrow we will consider the question at length. To-night—Well, Bertram, what is it?”
The young man started and dropped his eyes, which during the last words of his uncle had been fixed upon his face with strange and penetrating inquiry. “Nothing,” said he, “that is, nothing more;” and rose as if to leave.
But Mr. Sylvester put out his hand and stopped him. “There is something,” said he. “I have seen it in your face ever since you entered this room. What is it?”
The young man drew a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. Mr. Sylvester watched him with growing pallor. “You are right,” murmured his nephew at last; “there is something more, and it is only justice that you should hear it. I have had two adventures to-night; one quite apart from my conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant. Heaven that watches above us, has seen fit to accumulate difficulties in my path, and this last, perhaps, is the least explainable and the hardest to encounter.”
“What do you allude to?” cried his uncle, imperatively; “I have had an evening of too much agitation to endure suspense with equanimity. Explain yourself.”
“It will not take long,” said the other; “a few words will reveal to you the position in which I stand. Let me relate it in the form of a narrative. You know what a dark portion of the block that is in which Mr. Stuyvesant’s house is situated. A man might hide in any of the areas along there, without being observed by you unless he made some sound to attract your attention. I was, therefore, more alarmed than surprised when, shortly after leaving Mr. Stuyvesant’s dwelling, I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and turning, beheld a dark figure at my side, of an appearance calculated to arouse any man’s apprehension. He was tall, unkempt, with profuse beard, and eyes that glared even in the darkness of his surroundings, with a feverish intensity. ‘You are Mr. Sylvester,’ said he, with a look of a wild animal ready to pounce upon his prey. ‘Yes,’ said I, involuntarily stepping back, ‘I am Mr. Sylvester.’ ‘I want to speak to you,’ exclaimed he, with a rush of words as though a stream had broken loose; ‘now, at once, on business that concerns you. Will you listen?’
“I thought of the only business that seemed to concern me then, and starting still farther back, surveyed him with surprise. ‘I don’t know you,’ said I; ‘what business can you have with me?’ ‘Will you step into some place where it is warm and find out?’ he asked, shivering in his thin cloak, but not abating a jot of his eagerness. ‘Go on before me,’ said I, ‘and we will see.’ He complied at once, and in this way we reached Beale’s Coffee-Room, where we went in. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘out with what you have to say and be quick about it. I have no time to listen to nonsense and no heart to attend to it.’ His eye brightened; he did not cast a glance at the smoking victuals about him, though I knew he was hungry as a dog. ‘It is no nonsense,’ said he, ‘that I have to communicate to you.’ And then I saw he had once been a gentleman. ‘For two years and a half have I been searching for you,’ he went on, ‘in order that I might recall to your mind a little incident. You remember the afternoon of February, the twenty-fifth, two years ago?’
“‘No,’ said I, in great surprise, for his whole countenance was flushed with expectancy. ‘What was there about that day that I should remember it?’ He smiled and bent his face nearer to mine. ‘Don’t you recollect a little conversation you had in a small eating-house in Dey Street, with a gentleman of a high-sounding voice to whom you were obliged continually to say ‘hush!’’” I stared at the man, as you may believe, with some notion of his being a wandering lunatic. ‘I have never taken a meal in any eating-house in Dey Street,’ I declared, motioning to a waiter to approach us. The man observing it, turned swiftly upon me. ‘Do you think I care for any such petty fuss as that?’ asked he, indicating the rather slightly built man I had called to my rescue, while he covertly studied my face to observe the effect of his words.
“I started. I could not help it; this use of an expression almost peculiar to myself, assured me that the man knew me better than I supposed. Involuntarily I waved the waiter back and turned upon the man with an inquiring look.