"No thank you," replied Truyn shortly. He was evidently uneasy, and began examining the odds and ends at the table to give himself countenance; by accident he took up the book that Sempaly had been reading when he came in. It was Charles Lamb's Essays, and on the first page was written in a large, firm hand: "In friendly remembrance of a terrible quarrel, Zinka Sterzl."
"The child lost a bet with me not long since," Sempaly explained. "Another bet is still unsettled and is to be decided to-day at the Palatine." Truyn shut the book sharply and threw it down; then, setting his elbows on the table at which they were sitting, and fixing his eyes keenly on Sempaly's face he said:
"Do you intend to marry Zinka Sterzl?"
Sempaly started, "What do you mean?" he exclaimed; "what are you dreaming of?" But as Truyn said no more, simply gazing fixedly at him, he took up an attitude of defiance. He looked Truyn straight in the face with an angry glare and retorted:
"And suppose I do?"
"Then I can only hope you will have enough resolution to carry out your intentions," said Truyn, "for to stop half-way in such a case is a crime."
He drew a deep breath and looked at the ground. But Sempaly's face, instead of clearing, grew darker; he was prepared for vehement opposition and his cousin's calm consent, not to say encouragement, put him in the position of a man who, after straining every muscle to lift a heavy weight suddenly discovers that it is a piece of painted pasteboard. It completely threw him off his balance.
"Well, I must say!" he began in a tone of extreme annoyance, "you speak of it as if it were a no more serious question than the dancing of a cotillon. In plain terms the thing is impossible. What are we to live on? I have long since run through all my fortune, if I took what my brother would regard as so monstrous a step he would cut off all supplies, and Zinka is not of age. I might to be sure take to selling dripping to maintain my wife, which would have the additional advantage that my mother-in-law would cut me in consequence. Or perhaps you would advise me to let Dame Clotilde Sterzl keep us till Zinka comes into her money?"
"Well," says Truyn calmly, "if you can take such a reasonable view of the impossibility of your marriage with Zinka Sterzl, your behavior to her is perfectly inexplicable."
Truyn was still sitting by the little table on which the pretty coffee service was set out, while Sempaly, his hands in his pockets, was walking up and down the room, kicking and shoving the furniture with all the irritation of a man who knows himself to be in the wrong.