"What if I have? I like your pride, Nina; but be not too proud. Of course I have paid the money. I know Rapinsky, who deals with us often. I went to him after you spoke to me, and got it back again. There is your mother's necklace."
"I am sorry for this, Anton."
"Why sorry?"
"We are so poor that I shall be driven to take it elsewhere again. I cannot keep such a thing in the house while father wants. But better he should want than — "
"Than what, Nina?"
"There would be something like cheating in borrowing money on the same thing twice."
"Then put it by, and I will be your lender."
"No; I will not borrow from you. You are the only one in the world that I could never repay. I cannot borrow from you. Keep this thing, and if I am ever your wife, then you shall give it me."
"If you are ever my wife?"
"Is there no room for such an if? I hope there is not, Anton. I wish it were as certain as the sun's rising. But people around us are so cruel! It seems, sometimes, as though the world were against us. And then you, yourself — "