A gentle respiration was heard in the cabin, during the short pause that succeeded, though none could tell whence it came. The Alderman turned to regard the Patroon, as if he believed the sigh was his while the startled Ludlow looked curiously around him, at a loss to know who acknowledged, with so much sensibility, the truth of his reply.
“Your answers are well,” resumed the free-trader, after a pause longer than usual. Then, turning to Oloff Van Staats, he said, “Whom, or what, do you seek?”
“We come on a common errand.”
“And do you seek in all sincerity?”
“I could wish to find.”
“You are rich in lands and houses; is she you seek, dear to you as this wealth?”
“I esteem them both, since one could not wish to tie a woman he admired to beggary.”
The Alderman hemmed so loud as to fill the cabin, and then, startled at his own interruption, he involuntarily bowed an apology to the motionless form in the alcove, and regained his composure.
“There is more of prudence than of ardor in your answer. Have you ever felt jealousy?”
“That has he!” eagerly exclaimed Myndert “I’ve known the gentleman raving as a bear that has lost its cub, when my niece has smiled, in church, for instance, though it were only in answer to a nod from an old lady. Philosophy and composure, Patroon! Who the devil knows, but Alida may hear of this questioning?—and then her French blood will boil, to find that your love has always gone as regularly as a town-clock.”