"Bon! I understand what you want."
"And what do you ask on your side?"
Albert bent over a little, and said in a low but very distinct voice, with his eyes firmly fixed on his adversary:
"Twenty thousand dollars in Prussian current money, payable between now and eight days."
"The devil!" cried Felix, jumping up from his chair, in spite of his feebleness, and running around the room. "Twenty thousand dollars! why, that is a fortune."
Albert shrugged his shoulders.
"Two years' interest of the sum represented by the two estates of Stantow and Baerwalde. You must know best, of course, what the legacy is worth to you."
"But that is atrocious!" cried Felix, still running about in the room; "atrocious!"
"Don't hollow, Grenwitz; your people might hear you down in the kitchen. Sit down, if you please, and let us talk the matter over like men who know the world."
The unconquerable coolness and the cutting irony with which Albert uttered these words acted like a douche upon Felix's violent agitation. He sat down, and said, in a calmer tone: