"There again are the exaggerated ideas with which your German education has imbued you, and without which you were quite sentimental enough. Chosen calling! Brilliant career! You seem to have a very exalted idea of the position of a German journalist. Gustave's pen is admired and sought for so long as the whim of the public and the present political tendency last. Sooner or later that will come to an end, and then good-bye to his brilliant career. Here in America independence, riches, and the coveted post of head of a great commercial house, are offered to him. He would be worse than a fool to throw that up in order to continue to write leading articles."
"That is a matter of taste, and I assure you, Uncle Sandow, it would be quite immaterial to me whom you might choose as a partner if you would not draw me within the circle of your business calculations."
"I do it in your own interest. You know it was the dearest wish of your late father to keep your fortune in the business. He ever hoped that his place there would be filled by his son-in-law. It was not granted to him to see this himself."
"No," said Jessie, softly, "for he never had the heart to force me as you do now."
Sandow made an impatient movement.
"What exaggerated expressions are these! I do not think of forcing you, but I require with the greatest decision that you should listen to reason, and not cast aside the idea of this union without farther consideration, merely because it does not agree with your romantic ideas. You are nineteen, and must now think of marriage. Ideal marriages, such as you dream of, do not exist. To every one who woos you your fortune is the great attraction. The days of disinterested love are long past, and when one or another plays such a comedy with you it is only more surely to squander your money afterwards. It is important that you should make that perfectly clear to yourself, or the inevitable disappointments may be too hard for you."
An incredible heartlessness lay in the icy calm with which he reckoned all this up in the ears of his ward, and reduced the step on which depended all the dreams, illusions, all the future hopes of the young girl, to a flavourless calculation, of which the factor was her fortune.
Jessie's lip trembled painfully at this merciless exposition, for the air of infallibility with which it was pronounced showed her that Sandow really expressed his inmost convictions. Had she not already learnt what it meant to be a good match, and to thus enchain the selfishness and calculations of every man with whom she came in contact? Even her guardian saw and respected in her only the heiress, a bitter thought for a young creature whose heart longed passionately for happiness and love.
"Here you need not fear this," continued Sandow, who looked on her silence as a kind of assent. "This marriage offers you both similar advantages. With your hand Gustave receives a fortune and a high position in the commercial world here; through him you retain an interest in your father's business, and have the certainty that your wealth will be controlled and increased by your husband. The thing is so clear and simple that I cannot really comprehend your obstinate resistance, particularly as you have interested yourself formerly about Gustave, and you have always read his articles with the greatest enthusiasm."
"Because I believed in the writer of them; because I did not imagine it possible that all this glowing love of country, all this enthusiasm for the great and beautiful, could be only phrases to be cast to the winds as soon as it appeared advantageous to do so."