"Your defeat! Not at all! But I apprehend wrangling and discord in your married life."
"Wrangling and discord because Seraphin loves me?"
"No--not exactly--but because he is a believer and you are an unbeliever; in short, because he does not share your aims and views."
"How short-sighted you are! As you conceive of it, love is not a passion; at most, only, a cool mood which cannot be modified by the lovers themselves. Your apprehension would be well grounded concerning that kind of love. But suppose love were something quite different? Suppose it were a passion, a glowing, dazzling, omnipotent passion, and that Seraphin really loved me, do you think that I would not skilfully and prudently take advantage of this passion? Cannot a woman exert a decisive and directing influence over the husband who loves her tenderly? I have no fears because I do not view love with the eyes of a trader. I hope and trust with the adjurations of love to expel from Seraphin all superstitious spirits."
"How sly! Surely nothing can surpass a daughter of Eve in the matter of seductive arts!" exclaimed he, laughing. "Hem--yes, indeed, after what I have seen to-day, it is plain that the Adam Seraphin will taste of the forbidden fruit of ripened knowledge, persuaded by this tenderly beloved Eve. Look at him: there he wanders in the shade of the garden, sighing to the rose-bushes, dreaming, of your majesty, and little suspecting that he is threatened with conversion and redemption from the kingdom of darkness."
CHAPTER IV.
HANS SHUND.
Hans Shund returned home from business in high feather. Something unusual must have happened him, for his behavior was exceptional. Standing before his desk, he mechanically drew various papers from his pockets, and laid them in different drawers and pigeon-holes. The mechanical manner of his behavior was what was exceptional, for usually Hans Shund bestowed particular attention upon certain papers; his soul's life was in those papers. Moreover, on the present occasion, he kept shaking his head as if astonishment would not suffer him to remain quiet. Yet habitually Hans Shund never shook his head, for that proceeding betrays interior emotion, and Shund's neck was as hardened and stiff as his usurer's soul. The other exceptional feature of his behavior was a continuous growing, which at length waxed into a genuine soliloquy. But Hans Shund was never known to talk to himself, for talking to one's self indicates a kindly disposition, whilst Shund had no disposition whatever, as they maintain who knew him; or, if he had ever had one, it had smouldered into a hard, impenetrable crust of slag.
"Strange--remarkably strange!" said he. "Hem! what can it mean? How am I to account for it? Has the usurer undergone a transformation during the night?" And a hideous grin distorted his face. "Am I metamorphosed, am I enchanted, or am I myself an enchanter? Unaccountable, marvellous, unheard of!"
The papers had been locked up in the desk. A secret power urged him up and down the room, and finally into the adjoining sitting-room, where Mrs. Shund, a pale, careworn lady, sat near a sewing-stand, intent on her lonely occupation.