"The assistant has indeed an unusually beautiful hand bespeaking intelligence," said he, as with the mien of a connoisseur he examined the object of his betrothed's admiration.
But she, who did not wish for this agreement with her views, switched aside and searched for a new lash for his supposed stupidity.
"One cannot speak of intelligent hands," she broke out with a laugh, which sounded somewhat tipsy.
"Therefore I use the more correct expression of bespeaking intelligence...."
"Oh, you philosopher!" scornfully laughed the girl. "You dream, so that you do not see that we have eaten up all the radishes from you."
"I am glad that the traveler has a relish, and I see with pleasure that you have forestalled me in caring for his well being," said the commissioner, unconstrainedly. "Permit me to give you a welcome, Assistant Blom, and wish you much pleasure from your sojourn here in the solitude. And now I leave you in Miss Mary's care, she can give you all the preliminary explanations about fishing affairs; meantime I go up and rest myself. Farewell, my dove," he turned to the girl; "now take care of the young man and lead him in the right path. Good night, mama," he addressed to the widow of the exchequer officer and kissed her hand.
His sortie had come entirely unexpected, while its adequate motive and rounded form, leaving no trace of ill feeling, had saved him from protests and at the same time gave him the last word and a superiority which was grudged him.
Upon reaching his chamber, he had only time to be astonished that "the fear of loss" could bring him such incredible ability to dissimulate, suppress disagreeable perceptions, to harden himself, before he was lying on the sofa with a blanket over his head and sleeping without dreams. When he awoke after a couple of hours, he arose with a resolve, which he felt that he would hold fast to for life, to free himself from this woman.
But just as she through habit had eaten her way into his soul, so she could only be gnawed out the same way again, and the vacant place that he would leave in her, must first be filled by another. By him, whose soul had seemed to set her on fire at the first encounter.