Theresa let her hands fall in her lap, and looked down at the floor: “All that nice money, that nice money,” she cried. Then again, this time with a face distorted beyond easy recognition and at the top of her voice: “But you’ll get it, Daniel; I’ll see to it that you get it: I’ll bring it to you myself.” Then again, in a gentle voice of acute lamentation: “All that nice money.”
Daniel was almost convulsed. It seemed to him as if he had never rightly understood the word money before, as if the meaning of money had never been made clear to him until he heard Theresa say it.
“To-morrow morning at ten o’clock,” he said.
Theresa nodded her head in silence, and raised her hands with outstretched fingers as if to protect herself from Jason Philip. Willibald and Markus had crept under the door. The gate must not have been closed, for just then Philippina came in. She had come over with Daniel, but had remained outside on the street. She could not wait any longer; she was too anxious to see the consequences of her betrayal.
She looked around with affected embarrassment. Was it merely the sight of her that aroused Jason Philip’s wrath? Was it the half-cowardly, half-cynical smile that played around her lips? Or was it the cumulative effect of blind anger, long pent up and eager to be discharged, that made Jason Philip act as he did? Or did he have a vague suspicion of what Philippina had done? Suffice it to say, he leapt up to her and struck her in the face with his fist.
She never moved a muscle.
Indignant at the rudeness of his conduct, Daniel stepped between Jason Philip and his daughter. But the venomous scorn in the girl’s eyes stifled his sympathy; he turned to the door, and went away in silence.
“All that nice money,” murmured Theresa.
XIII
When Daniel told the Jordans that the money would be there the next morning, Jordan looked at him first unbelievingly, and then wept like a child.