Chapter Sixteen.
A Conversion, a Wedding, and several other Things.
Max, being heir to his brother’s estate, was now well off. Old Schalk, mindful of his account as standing in the books at the shop, felt obliged to be civil. Max was, and felt himself to be, master of the situation.
No longer the shy, diffident dreamer of a few months back, Max developed a keenness and aptitude for business which came as an unpleasant revelation to those who tried to get on his blind side. In fact Max had no blind side—he seemed to have eyes all round his head.
He soon satisfied himself of one thing, namely, that a business such as his, unless the legitimate gains were supplemented by the profits of the illicit trade in wild ostrich feathers, would not pay at Namies. Not seeing his way towards following Nathan’s dangerous methods, he determined to wind up the business as it stood, and reopen in some spot in Southern Bushmanland were the farmers were in better circumstances, and where communication with more civilised parts was neither so difficult nor so uncertain. However, he kept these conclusions strictly to himself.
There was one drawer in the little iron safe of which Nathan had always kept the key. Upon opening this he found, to his astonishment, documents which showed that there was a balance to his credit in one of the Cape Town banks of over a thousand pounds, and that the stock, which was worth several hundreds more, was fully paid for. He was a rich man. The diamonds were worth a considerable amount—but these he would have to keep until he could go to Europe before he could realise them.
Amid the flux and reformation of his character his love for Susannah never changed. It was probably owing to this that he did not, under his recent experiences, lose all faith in human nature. He now felt that he was in such a position that he could marry whenever he wanted to. As a measure of policy he allowed, at this juncture, the Hattinghs to have a little more credit, and the quality of the coffee dispensed so lavishly by Mrs Hattingh from the scherm—to all comers—improved very much in consequence. He made up his mind that as soon as Susannah became his wife he would write off the whole of the Hattingh account as a bad debt, and afterwards take care that no further credit was given in that quarter.
“I will marry you as soon as ever you like,” said Susannah to him one day; “but you must first become a Christian; then I know Uncle will not refuse.”