"Well?"
"Ah!" stammered De Vlierbeck, "have mercy on me! Love for my child, probably, led me astray. God endowed her with all the gifts that can adorn a woman. I hoped that her beauty, the purity of her soul, the nobility of her blood, were treasures quite as precious as gold!"
"That is to say, for a gentleman, perhaps; but not for so common a person as a merchant," interrupted Monsieur Denecker, with a sneer.
"Don't reproach me with having courted your nephew," continued De Vlierbeck. "That is a word that wounds me deeply; for it is unjust. Their attachment was reciprocal and in every way unstudied. I thanked God daily in my prayers that he had cast in our path a savior for my child:—yes, a savior, I say; for Gustave is an honorable youth, who would have made her happy not so much by money as by his noble and generous character. Is it then so great a crime for a father who has unfortunately become poor to hope that his child should escape want?"
"Certainly not," replied the merchant; "but every thing is in success; and in that respect, Monsieur De Vlierbeck, your enterprise has been unfortunate. I am a man who examines his goods twice before he buys, and it is difficult to pass apples on me for lemons!"
This heartless, trafficking slang tortured the unfortunate bankrupt to such a degree that he arose from his seat in a passion and began to pace the apartment.
"You have no consideration for my misfortunes, sir," said he. "You pretend that I designed deceiving you; but was it you who discovered my poverty? Are you not free to act as you please, after the disclosures that I have voluntarily given you? And let me remark, sir, that if I listen humbly to your reproaches—if I even acknowledge my fault—the sense of manhood is not dead in my soul. You talk of 'merchandise' and 'goods,' as if you came here to buy something! You allude to my Lenora, do you? All your wealth, sir, could not purchase her! and, if love is not powerful enough in your eyes to obliterate the pecuniary inequality between us, know that I am a De Vlierbeck, and that name, even in poverty, weighs more than all your money!"
During this explosion his face kindled with indignation and his eyes shot forth their fiery rays upon the merchant, who, alarmed by the loud words and animated gestures of De Vlierbeck, regarded him with an air of stupefaction from the other side of the apartment.
"Good God, sir," said he at last, "there is no need of so much violence and loud talk! Each of us remains where he is; each keeps what he has, and the affair is at an end. I have but one request to make of you, and it is that you will never again receive my nephew,—or else—"
"Or else?" interrupted De Vlierbeck, passionately; "do you dare to threaten me?" But, restraining himself almost instantly, he continued, with comparative calmness, "Enough! Shall I call Monsieur Denecker's carriage?"