And she sighed as she remembered how his plans had been crossed and his business ruined, and his heart broken—how both for him and for Frithiof failure had been decreed.
Yet the Christmas bells rang on in this world of strangely mingled joy and sorrow, and they brought her much the same message that had been brought to her by the silence on Hjerkinshö—
“There is a better plan which can’t go wrong,” she said, to herself.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
“I have some news for you,” said Mr. Horner to his wife a few days after this, as one evening he entered the drawing-room. The huge gold clock with the little white face pointed to the hour of eight, the golden pigs still climbed the golden hill, the golden swineherd still leaned meditatively on his golden staff. Mrs. Horner, arrayed in peacock-blue satin, glanced from her husband to the clock and back again to her husband.
“News?” she said in a distinctly discouraging tone “Is it that which makes you so late? However, it’s of no consequence to me if the dinner is spoiled, quite the contrary, I am not particular. But I beg you wont grumble if the meat is done to a cinder.”
“Never mind the dinner,” replied Mr. Horner captiously. “I have other things to think of than overdone joints. That fool Boniface has taken me at my word, and actually doesn’t intend to renew the partnership.”
“What!” cried his wife, “not now that all this affair is cleared up, and you have apologized so handsomely to young Falck?”
“No; it’s perfectly disgraceful,” said James Horner, looking like an angry turkey-cock as he paced to and fro. “I shook hands with Falck and told him I was sorry to have misjudged him, and even owned to Boniface that I had spoken hastily, but would you believe it, he wont reconsider the matter. He not only gives me the sack but he takes in my place that scheming Norwegian.”
“But the fellow has no capital,” cried Mrs. Horner, in great agitation. “He is as poor as a rook! He hasn’t a single penny to put into the concern.”