"I shall not talk about it. But why do you say that?"
"Because I see from the old gentleman's books that he often used to give you money. At least there are entries: 'To O. S.'"
She flushed up:
"I wasn't obliged to tell you."
"No, but you always used to say that you had found some money in your cupboard and make yourself out more careless than you were."
"The old man himself asked me not to talk about that money...."
"And you were quite right not to. I only say, you can be silent when you choose. So be silent now."
"I don't want your advice, thank you!" she blazed out; but he had left the room.
She clenched her fist: oh, she hated him, she hated him, especially for his voice! She could not stand his cold, bass voice, his deep, measured words. She hated him: she could have smacked his face, just to see if he would then still speak in cool, deliberate tones. She hated him more and more every day. She hated him so much that she longed for his death. She had wept beside the old man's body; she could have danced beside Steyn's! Oh, she didn't yet realize how she hated him! She pictured him dead, run over, or wounded to the death, with a knife in his heart or a bullet through his temple ... and she knew that she would then rejoice within herself. It was all because he spoke so coolly and deliberately and never said a kind word to her now and never caressed her!...
"A hundred thousand guilders!" she thought. "It's a lot of money. Ah, I'd rather the dear good man were still alive! And that now and then, in that kind way of his, he gave me a couple of hundred guilders. That's what I shall miss so terribly. It's true, I have some money now; but I have nothing else left!"