"I know the trouble that weighs on your soul, mynheer," replied Diogenes simply.
"You have heard then what your friend says of you?" continued the old man, whose tear-dimmed eyes gleamed with the new-born flicker of hope. "Our good Hals is enthusiastic, romantic ... mayhap he hath exaggerated ... hath in fact been mistaken...."
It was sadly pathetic to see the unfortunate father so obviously hovering 'twixt hope and fear, his hands trembled, there was an appeal in his broken voice, an appeal that he should not be deceived, that he should not be thrown back from the giddy heights of hope to the former deep abyss of despair.
"My daughter, sir ..." he murmured feebly, "she is all the world to me ... her mother died when she was a baby ... she is all the world to me ... they have taken her from me ... she is so young, sir ... so beautiful ... she is all the world to me ... I would give half my fortune to have her back safely in my arms...."
There was silence in the quaint old-world place after that—silence only broken by the suppressed sobs of the unfortunate man who had lost his only daughter. The others sat round the table, saying no word, for the pathos evoked by Beresteyn's grief was too great for words. Hals' eyes were fixed on his friend, and he tried in vain to read and understand the enigmatical smile which hovered in every line of that mobile face. The stillness only lasted a few seconds: the next moment Diogenes' ringing voice had once more set every lurking echo dancing from rafter to rafter.
"Mynheer!" he said loudly, "you have lost your daughter. Here am I to do you service, and by God I swear that I will bring your daughter safely back to you."
Frans Hals heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. Cornelius Beresteyn, overcome by emotion, could not at first utter a word. He put out his hand, groping for that of the man who had fanned the flames of hope into living activity.
Diogenes, solemnly trying to look grave and earnest, took the hand thus loyally offered to him. He could have laughed aloud at the absurdity of the present situation. He—pledged by solemn word of honour to convey Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn to Rotterdam and there to place her into the custody of Ben Isaje, merchant of that city, he—carrying inside his doublet an order to Ben Isaje to pay him 3,000 guilders, he—known to the jongejuffrouw as the author of the outrage against her person, he was here solemnly pledging himself to restore her safely into her father's arms. How this was to be fulfilled, how he would contrive to earn that comfortable half of a rich Haarlem merchant's fortune, he had—we may take it—at the present moment, not the remotest idea: for indeed, the conveying of the jongejuffrouw back to Haarlem would be no difficult matter, once his promise to Nicolaes Beresteyn had been redeemed. The question merely was how to do this without being denounced by the lady herself as an impudent and double-dealing knave, which forsooth she already held him to be.
Cornelius and his friends, however, gave him no time now for further reflection. All the thinking out would have to be done presently—no doubt on the way between Haarlem and Houdekerk, and probably in a mist of driving snow—for the nonce he had to stand under the fire of unstinted eulogy hurled at him from every side.
"Well spoken, young man!"