When the warrant was handed to her with the bundle of securities, Marie Louise was puzzled, then shocked as the old man explained with his still uncertain lips. When she understood, she rejected the gift with horror. Sir Joseph pleaded with her in a thick speech that had relapsed to an earlier habit.
“I am theenkink how close I been by dyink. Du bist––zhoo are in my vwill, of coorse, but a man says, ‘I vwill,’ and some heirs says, ‘You vwon’t yet!’ Better I should make sure of somethink.”
“But I don’t want money, papa––not like this. And I won’t have you speak of wills and such odious things.”
“You have been like our own daughter only more obeyink as poor Hedwig. You should not make me sick by to refuse.”
She could only quiet him by accepting the wealth and bringing him the receipt for its deposit in a safe of her own.
When he was once more able to hoist his massive body to its feet and to walk to his own door, he said:
“Mein––my Gott! Look at the calendar once. It is nineteen seventeen already.”
He ceased to be that simple, primitive thing, a sick man; he became again the financier. She heard of him anew on war-industry boards. She saw his name on lists of big subscriptions. 36 He began to talk anew of Nicky, and he spoke with unusual anxiety of U-boats. He hoped that they would have a bad week. There was no questioning his sincerity in this.
And one evening he came home in a womanish flurry. He pinched the ear of Marie Louise and whispered to her:
“Nicky is here in England––safe after the sea voyage. Be a nize girl, and you shall see him soon now.”