Henk did not answer. With his stick he sat slowly beating time to the music.
“It’s a nuisance that I did not come to an arrangement with that quinine affair,” resumed Vincent. “But you see I have just received a letter from a friend in America; he is rich and is well connected, and will get me an introduction to a business house in New York. But for the moment, you know—I say, van Raat, you would be rendering me an immense service—lend me another fifty florins.”
Henk turned round to face Vincent, with a passionate movement.
“Look here, Vere, is there never going to be an end of that bother? I must frankly admit that it is beginning to sicken me. One day ’tis fifteen hundred florins, then a hundred, then fifty. What—what in Heaven’s name are you waiting for then? What is it you intend to do? why do you laze about so, if you haven’t a cent in the world? why don’t you try and get something to do? I can’t keep you, can I?”
Vincent had felt a vague presentiment of a coming storm, and let the curt disjointed sentences which Henk in his clumsy passion grunted out, pass over him without contradiction. But his silence made Henk feel almost embarrassed, and the sound of his own voice reverberated roughly in his ears. Still he proceeded—
“Then again you talk a lot of nonsense about money from Brussels—or from Malaga; another time it is to come from New York. When is it coming, I should like to know? You understand, it won’t ruin me if you don’t pay me what you owe me, neither shall I ever trouble you about it; but taken altogether it’s now not far short of two thousand florins, and I am getting sick of it. Don’t in Heaven’s name keep loafing about in the Hague here; look for something to do.”
Henk’s passionate tone was already giving way to a kindlier one, but Vincent remained silent, his eyes fixed on the points of his boots, which he was gently tapping with his stick, and Henk was at a loss what to say next. And it was a relief to him when Vincent at length lifted up his head and whispered— [[171]]
“It’s quite true—you are right—but it’s not my fault—circumstances. Anyhow I shall see what I can do—excuse my troubling you.”
He slowly rose from his seat, while Henk, whom that placid resignation greatly embarrassed, sought in vain for some appropriate phrase.
“Well, good-night, au revoir!” Vincent said with a faint smile, and he nodded to Henk without offering him his hand. “Good-night; I must be off.”