‘Of course you aren’t,’ Aribert replied. ‘But you mustn’t sit up. You must take care of yourself.’
‘Who will lend the money?’ Eugen asked in a feeble, happy whisper.
‘Never mind. You shall hear later. Devote yourself now to getting better.’
The change in the patient’s face was extraordinary. His mind seemed to have put on an entirely different aspect. The doctor was startled to hear him murmur a request for food. As for Aribert, he sat down, overcome by the turmoil of his own thoughts. Till that moment he felt that he had never appreciated the value and the marvellous power of mere money, of the lucre which philosophers pretend to despise and men sell their souls for. His heart almost burst in its admiration for that extraordinary Nella, who by mere personal force had raised two men out of the deepest slough of despair to the blissful heights of hope and happiness. ‘These Anglo-Saxons,’ he said to himself, ‘what a race!’
By the afternoon Eugen was noticeably and distinctly better. The physicians, puzzled for the third time by the progress of the case, announced now that all danger was past. The tone of the announcement seemed to Aribert to imply that the fortunate issue was due wholly to unrivalled medical skill, but perhaps Aribert was mistaken. Anyhow, he was in a most charitable mood, and prepared to forgive anything.
‘Nella,’ he said a little later, when they were by themselves again in the ante-chamber, ‘what am I to say to you? How can I thank you? How can I thank your father?’
‘You had better not thank my father,’ she said. ‘Dad will affect to regard the thing as a purely business transaction, as, of course, it is. As for me, you can—you can—’
‘Well?’
‘Kiss me,’ she said. ‘There! Are you sure you’ve formally proposed to me, mon prince?’
‘Ah! Nell!’ he exclaimed, putting his arms round her again. ‘Be mine! That is all I want!’