No! the njonja had heard nothing but the crunching of the gravel; but the mere sight of these two Chinamen—and especially the sight of the opium-farmer, which brought at once Lim Ho to her mind, and her arrangements with MʻBok Kârijâh—caused the demon of money to triumph, and put to silence all other passions in her breast.
“Mr. van Nerekool,” said she in a gentle coaxing tone of voice, “the Resident is not at all so badly disposed towards you as you seem to think. But he is a man who has a great eye for all that is practical.—Allow me to speak and do not interrupt me.—Our conversation has already lasted too long. The world might, you know—But no, you love my daughter do you not?”
She hesitated—she stammered, she was trembling all over. Young van Nerekool gazed at her with a strange puzzled expression which she seemed perfectly to understand.
“The Resident,” she resumed, “will have practical men and—you must pardon me,” she continued with slight hesitation, “you must pardon me for saying so; but you are not a practical man. No, no,” continued she hastily, “don’t look at me like that! You are moving in a world of dreams, which is very far removed indeed from practical every-day life. You picture to yourself an ideal world as different as possible from the one in which we live. And, I can tell you, if you cannot somehow or other manage to wake up out of your day-dreams, you will be in great danger of never making any way at all in the judicial career which you have chosen. Yours is, in sober fact, a most prosaic career; and the one of all others, in which dreams and fancies are utterly out of place.”
Van Nerekool listened to this homily with the greatest attention and most submissively, though he felt arising within him a nameless feeling of uneasiness which he had much trouble to suppress.
“I am prepared to accede to your request,” resumed fair Laurentia with her most winning smile, but at the same time emphasizing every syllable as if she counted them,—“I will speak for you, and I will plead your cause with the Resident,—and if I once consent to do that, Anna will be yours.”
“Oh how can I sufficiently thank you,” exclaimed van Nerekool, laying his hand on his heart, as if he wished to keep down its beating.
Very little more and he would, in his transport of gratitude, have snatched up Laurentia to his breast and covered her with kisses. Happily, however, he restrained himself,—happily, for who knows what effect such an act might have had upon the excitable woman.
“Be calm, Mr. van Nerekool,” said she, “be calm. I am ready to intercede for you; but then, on your part, you must make me one promise.”
“Oh speak, madam, speak—I will in every way—”