"These knights of the quill are accustomed to fine expressions," said Sandow slightingly. "It is a business matter. It would be hard upon them if they must match word and deed. Gustave has written as his situation and the tendency of the day demanded, and now he acts as reason requires. If he did not he would be useless to me as a partner. And now let us end the discussion. I do not urge you to decide either to-day or to-morrow, but await nevertheless with certainty your assent to my wishes."
"Never!" cried Jessie, flaming out. "To belong to a man who sees in me merely a paragraph in a business contract; to an egoist who sacrifices to his material gain all that is holy and dear to others! Never! Never!"
Sandow took little or no notice of this passionate outburst. If Jessie had been his daughter he would have simply commanded and forced her to follow his wishes, but he knew too well the limits of his power as guardian to attempt anything of the kind here. He knew besides that his long-accustomed and dreaded authority was of itself a kind of compulsion to the girl, and was determined to employ it.
"We will leave the subject now," said he, rising. "I am going to the station, and expect in an hour to present my brother to you. You will condescend in the first place to learn to know him, and everything else will follow in time. Good-bye."
With this he left the room, and the carriage, which had been waiting for him, rolled from the door.
Jessie remained alone, and now, when she felt herself no longer under the ban of those cold, hard eyes, the long-repressed tears burst forth. The girl plainly did not belong to those energetic natures which set will against will. In these tears she betrayed all the weakness of a character accustomed to be directed and led, and which, in the first struggle to which it must arm itself, feels its own impotence.
It was, indeed, the first struggle of her life. Reared in the happiest circumstances, sheltered by the love of the tenderest parents, pain had first approached her when her mother died, and two years after her father followed his wife to the grave. In his will, Sandow, the friend and partner of many years, was named guardian of the orphan girl, and her pecuniary interests could have been placed in no better hands.
But Jessie had never succeeded in forming a real attachment to her uncle, though she had known him from her childhood. He was a near relation of her mother's, and like her a native of Germany. More than twelve years before he had come almost destitute to America, and had sought and found a situation in her father's business. They said misfortunes and bitter experiences had driven him from Europe. What these really had been Jessie could never learn, for even her parents seemed only partially informed on the subject, and Sandow himself never alluded to it.
In the beginning he had been placed in a subordinate position in the office merely out of consideration for him as a connection, but he soon developed such a restless activity, such prudence and energy, that he speedily won for himself a place second only to the chief himself, and when a threatened business crisis was turned aside only through his timely and energetic action, he was promoted to a share in the concern, which under his guidance soon made quite a new departure. A succession of bold and fortunate speculations raised the, till then, modest firm to the position of the first in the town, and the new chief managed to employ so successfully the weight which this good-fortune gave him that he became almost sole ruler, and at all events possessed the first and decisive voice in any question of importance.
In this way Sandow had become in a comparatively short time a wealthy man. As he was alone, he resided as before in the house of his relations, but in spite of this domestic intercourse of many years' duration, and in spite also of the community of interests, he had never become really united with them. His cold, harsh manner closed the way to any nearer approach; he recognised nothing but business interests and incessant labour, and never sought rest or relaxation in the family circle; indeed, these were things which for him appeared to have no existence.