The president walked close up to him; he was now much agitated, and his voice betrayed extreme irritation: "Your expressions are, to say the least, strong. Do you suppose you can dictate to me? Have a care, Wolfgang. You are not yet my son-in-law; the knot is not yet tied which was to link you to me. I can cut it at the last moment, and you are too clever not to know all that you would lose with my daughter's hand."
"That means that you make it a condition?"
"Yes,--your signature! Either that--or----!"
As Nordheim spoke thus explicitly, Wolfgang's eyes were fixed gloomily on the ground. He pondered all the consequences of the president's 'Either that--or----!' he was indeed 'clever enough' to know that millions would be lost to him with his betrothed,--the wealth, the brilliant future for which he had bartered his happiness. The moment had come in which he was required to barter something more, and suddenly memory recalled that hour on the Wolkenstein in the moonlit midsummer night when this moment had been sadly foretold him: 'The price now is your freedom; in future it may perhaps be your honour!'
Nordheim interpreted the young man's silence after his own fashion; he laid his hand on Wolfgang's shoulder, and said, in a gentler tone, "Be reasonable, Elmhorst. We should both lose by a separation, and it is the last thing that I desire; but I can and must require my son-in-law to go hand in hand with me, and to make my interests his own. You give me your signature, and I will go surety for everything else. We will both forget this conversation, and divide the profit, which will make you a wealthy, independent man."
"At the price of my honour!" Wolfgang exclaimed, in hot indignation. "No, by heaven, it shall never come to that! I ought to have known long ago whither your rule of life, your business principles, would lead, for since my betrothal to your daughter you have thrown off all reserve; but I chose to see and to know nothing, because I was fool enough to imagine that, in spite of it all, I could pursue my own path and do as I chose. Now I see that there is no halting in the downward course, that he who leagues himself with you cannot keep his honour unstained. I have been ambitious and reckless--yes. I reckoned upon our association in this undertaking as you did, and conceded more to it than my conscience could entirely justify, but I never will stoop to deceive. If you believed me ready to be a scoundrel for the sake of your wealth,--if the future of which I have dreamed is to be purchased only at such a price,--let it go. I will have none of it!"
He stood erect, and with flashing eyes hurled his refusal at the president. There was something grand and overwhelming in this stormy outbreak from the man who thus at last threw off all the fetters of petty self-interest which had held him bound so long, whose better nature asserted itself and trampled down the alluring temptation. He knew that he was resigning the wealth which would make him independent of Nordheim's favour; that with it he should be free and unfettered to realize all his golden dreams of the future. There had been an instant of hesitation, and then he thrust the tempter from him and redeemed his honour!
The president stood frowning darkly. He perceived now that he had been mistaken in supposing that he should find in the ambitious young engineer a willing instrument, a nature as unscrupulous as his own, but he had no mind to break entirely with the son-in-law he had chosen. He would lose most by the separation; in the first place, all the profit which Wolfgang's signature would insure him would be destroyed, and moreover, he said to himself, it would be dangerous to make an enemy of one so thoroughly acquainted with his schemes. It could not be; a breach must be avoided, at least for the present.
"Let us drop this matter for to-day," he said, slowly. "It is too important, and we are neither of us in a mood to discuss it calmly. I am going to my mountain-villa in a week, and until then you can take the affair into consideration. I will not accept your present hasty decision."
"You will be obliged to accept it at the end of the week," Wolfgang declared. "My answer will be precisely the same then. Let a true estimate be made of the cost of the railway, at its highest valuation, and I will not refuse to give it my sanction. I never will sign my name to the present one. That is my final word. Farewell!"