"Come soon again," said Truyn, shaking hands with him, "give my remembrance to Fritz, and--er--tell him to come and see me soon." He walked towards the court-yard with the old man, and when he returned he observed that Oswald, as he was silently rolling up a cigarette, was frowning furiously, evidently angry.
"Where does the shoe pinch, Ossi?" he asked.
"I cannot understand, uncle, how you can be so hard upon Fritz!" exclaimed Oswald throwing away his cigarette. "You are wont to be the softest-hearted of men, but to that poor devil ...."
"Don't excite yourself so terribly," Truyn said kindly, but in some surprise at the young man's violence. How could he divine the disturbance of mind that was at the root of his indignation? "You are so irritable ...."
"I am perfectly calm," Oswald boldly asserted, "only .... how could you send messages to Fritz by the doctor, and ask him to come to you? Have you no idea of his miserably sore state of mind?--and physically too he is so wretched that he cannot last six months longer; I have begged you to go and see him."
"Papa! If Ossi begs you!" Gabrielle whispered, looking up at her father with the large pleading eyes of a child.
"Ah, you can't understand how any one can possibly refuse Ossi anything," Truyn said, smiling in the midst of his annoyance.
She blushed and cast down her eyes.
"What can you find to like in this fellow, Ella?" her father rallied her. "A man ready to take fire, and clinch his fist upon the smallest provocation. What would you say if I should put my veto upon this foolish betrothal with a young savage who is only half-responsible?"
Gabrielle's blush grew deeper, she looked alternately at her father and at her lover, and finally deciding in favour of the latter gently laid her hand upon his arm.