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Here Reineke’s note book, of which I was glad to avail myself, grows too incoherent and impassioned for further use. The author will try to tell the rest of his story.
CHAPTER XVI. A REVELATION.
It was unknown, as regards time, to Reineke and Inarime whether minutes or hours had passed before Selaka and his sister rejoined them. The massive woman looked sharply at Gustav, then nodded to her brother in emphatic approval. A keen and not unkindly glance took in the situation, and it was possible she liked Reineke all the more for the tell-tale colour that mounted to his cheeks under her searching inspection.
“Now, my children,” said Selaka, with as near an approach to the ordinary gesture of rubbing the hands as a man so wedded to the customs and restraint of the ancients could display. Here was a son-in-law, if you will, not a popinjay from Athens, not a superficial European, not a gross Teniote; but a man who was accustomed to deep draughts from the old founts of learning! Whose youth still ran fire through his veins, while the beauty of his face was enhanced by a delicate suggestion of strength and burning life! Yes, Selaka was thoroughly pleased with Gustav, and, in spite of his philosophic condemnation of the impetuosities and frenzied purposes of an age he had long since passed, something within him thrilled to their memoried delights. Upon reflection, he would perhaps have viewed less enthusiastically the love of a saner and older man for Inarime; and there might be moments of sceptical acknowledgment of the sage reticence and colder blood of the other different son-in-law he had dreamed of. There remained nothing now to be discovered but the pecuniary circumstances of Reineke, and some slight knowledge of his parentage. He looked very unlike a German, but German blood might be crossed as well as any other. Inarime had escaped, and Reineke stood rivetted to the very spot she had left with a dazed look on his face as if he felt rather than saw. He was awakened from the dreamy sensations that enveloped him by the touch of Kyria Helene’s hand.
“Pericles tells me that you have come to take Inarime from us,” said she, and then nodded reassuringly to him, as if she thought it on the whole an extremely reasonable intention on his part.
“I am glad you think me worthy,” said Gustav, with a foolish lover’s smile.
“Oh, for that I don’t know; you may and you may not be. Young people must take their chance; it’s for them to choose, and for them to decide. You are comfortably off, I hope?”