Part 15 (1/2)
”Certainly”
”That not one of your movements escaped hirowing quite pale
”Well?”
”It was not you he was after”
”Who else, then?”
”It is not you that he was in love with!”
”But hom else?”
”He was after my bulb, and is in love with my tulip!”
”You don't say so! And yet it is very possible,” said Rosa
”Will you make sure of it?”
”In what manner?”
”Oh, it would be very easy!”
”Tell e matters so that Jacobthere, and that he round; leave the garden, but look through the keyhole of the door and watch him”
”Well, and what then?”
”What then? We shall do as he does”
”Oh!” said Rosa, with a sigh, ”you are very fond of your bulbs”
”To tell the truth,” said the prisoner, sighing likewise, ”since your father crushed that unfortunate bulb, I feel as if part of my own self had been paralyzed”
”Now just hearelse?”
”What?”
”Will you accept the proposition of my father?”
”Which proposition?”
”Did not he offer to you tulip bulbs by hundreds?”
”Indeed he did”
”Accept two or three, and, along with therow the third sucker”
”Yes, that would do very well,” said Cornelius, knitting his brow; ”if your father were alone, but there is that Master Jacob, atches all our ways”
”Well, that is true; but only think! you are depriving yourself, as I can easily see, of a very great pleasure”
She pronounced these words with a se of irony
Cornelius reflected for a ainst some vehement desire
”No!” he cried at last, with the stoicism of a Roman of old, ”it would be a weakness, it would be a folly, it would be a ive up the only and last resource which we possess to the uncertain chances of the bad passions of anger and envy, I should never deserve to be forgiven No, Rosa, no; to-morroe shall come to a conclusion as to the spot to be chosen for your tulip; you will plant it according to my instructions; and as to the third sucker,” -- Cornelius here heaved a deep sigh, -- ”watch over it as a old; as the mother over her child; as the wounded over the last drop of blood in his veins; watch over it, Rosa! So, that it will be a source of good to us”
”Be easy, Mynheer Cornelius,” said Rosa, with a sweet ravity, ”be easy; your wishes are co more and more with his subject, ”if you should perceive that your steps are watched, and that your speech has excited the suspicion of your father and of that detestable Master Jacob, -- well, Rosa, don't hesitate for one h you, -- me, who have no one in the world but you; sacrifice me, -- don't come to see me any more”
Rosa felt her heart sink within her, and her eyes were filling with tears
”Alas!” she said
”What is it?” asked Cornelius
”I see one thing”
”What do you see?”
”I see,” said she, bursting out in sobs, ”I see that you love your tulips with such love as to have no more roo this, she fled
Cornelius, after this, passed one of the worst nights he ever had in his life
Rosa was vexed with hiood reason Perhaps she would never return to see the prisoner, and then he would have no more news, either of Rosa or of his tulips
We have to confess, to the disgrace of our hero and of floriculture, that of his two affections he felt ret the loss of Rosa; and when, at about three in the ue, and harassed with rerand black tulip yielded precedence in his dreams to the sweet blue eyes of the fair maid of Friesland