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Jelnik made his adieus, Boris offering each of us a polite paw. "And now," the doctor ordered briskly, "to your spinning, jades, to your spinning! Into my car, the three of you! No, Martha, I will not take a refusal; you shall not walk: you've got to come along, if I have to tuck you under my arm. I don't care if you never reduce. What do you want to reduce for, anyhow?
Jelnik praised by her or doubted by The Author. But somehow I could not bear any criticism of Doctor Geddes just then. I said stiffly: "I have learned to appreciate Doctor Geddes." "You are far too fair-minded not to." Presently: "Sophy?" "Uh-huh." "We aren't ever going to be sorry we came here together are we, Sophy? And we won't ever let anybody come between us. Not anybody.
He put his hands to his head. "Why, Sophy! Why, Sophy!" he stammered. Of a sudden he straightened his shoulders, and stood erect: "Miss Smith," he said, with grave politeness, "will you do me the honor to marry me?" and he waited. "It is rather a belated request, Mr. Jelnik. Besides, you haven't told me why you want to marry me," said I, sedately. "You are well aware that I love you, Sophy.
"Before you go," said Nicholas Jelnik, "I should like to give you a talisman, to turn Miss Smith into Woman-in-the-Woods every now and then." And with his pocket-knife he cut a sharp line down the thin old coin he had tossed, worked at it for a few minutes with a pocket file and a stone, and then with his fingers that looked so slim but were strong as steel nippers. The coin broke in halves.
But now that I know you love me" and I paused. He took a step forward, but stopped. His arms fell to his sides. "Not as a beggar!" he said. "Not as a beggar! Never that, for Nicholas Jelnik! I love you too much for that, Sophy. I love you not only for yourself, but for my own best self, too, my dearest." For a moment he stood there, regarding me fixedly.
Boris, with a deep-throated, smothered growl of fear and protest, bared his teeth and sidled against him, bristling and trembling. We consulted briefly. Mr. Jelnik was for leaving her there in the cellar room, until a fitter opportunity offered to give her sepulture. But to this I vehemently objected. I could not have stayed another hour in that house while I knew she was in it.
I couldn't explain the situation to him, of course, any more than I could explain to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik that his presence in Hynds House, while pleasing to us, was disquieting and displeasing to others.
"And that poor woman Jessamine went mad trying to solve it!" he said, looking at her with commiseration. And after a pause: "And so the lady who left her husband's grandniece the house of her forebears was Freeman's daughter: and the Austrian doctor's son is Richard's great-great-grandson! I meet Jelnik père in Vienna, and come to Hyndsville, South Carolina, to meet Jelnik fils. H'm!
"These for Hynds House, Sophy!" he cried, and laughed again to see my lips tremble. "What? It is not these you want? Choose for yourself, then. I promised you the best of them, you know." "I want none of them," I said. "No? Take them, then, Achmet, and put them away," said Mr. Jelnik, in a matter-of-fact voice. "You will guard them for me, for the time being.
"Why did the sahiba follow when I showed her a broken coin?" he asked. "Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me." "Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent. "Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed. He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave."
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