He was a man not much
given to dalliance, not requiring from day to day the soft sweetness of
a woman's presence to keep his love warm; but his love could maintain
its own heat, without any softness or dalliance. Had it not been so,
such a girl as Nina would hardly have surrendered to him her whole
heart as she had done.
"You will fall into trouble about the maiden," the elder Trendellsohn
had said.
"True, father; there will be trouble enough. In what that we do is
there not trouble?"
"A man in the business of his life must encounter labour and grief and
disappointment. He should take to him a wife to give him ease in these
things, not one who will be an increase to his sorrows."
"That which is done is done."
"My son, this thing is not done."
"She has my plighted word, father. Is not that enough?"
"Nina is a good girl. I will say for her that she is very good. I have
wished that you might have brought to my house as your wife the child
of my old friend Baltazar Loth; but if that may not be, I would have
taken Nina willingly by the hand--had she been one of us.
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