“Three hundred three hundred eleven twelve thirteen sixteen in five years! Let`s say four per cent five times twelve sixty, and on these sixty. Let us assume that in five years it will amount to -well, four hundred. Hm hm! But the shrewd old fox isn`t likely to be satisfied with four per cent. He gets eight or even ten, perhaps. Let`s suppose five hundred, five hundred thousand, at least, that`s sure. Anything above that for pocket money hm ”
He blew his nose and was about to leave the room when he spied the girl and stood still.
I, behind the plants, escaped his notice. He seemed to me to be quivering with excitement. It must have been his calculations that upset him so. He rubbed his hands and danced from place to place, and kept getting more and more excited. Finally, however, he conquered his emotions and came to a standstill. He cast a determined look at the future bride and wanted to move toward her, but glanced about first. Then, as if with a guilty conscience, he stepped over to the child on tip-toe, smiling, and bent down and kissed her head.
His coming was so unexpected that she uttered a shriek of alarm.
“What are you doing here, dear child?” he whispered, looking around and pinching her cheek.
We`re playing
“We`re playing.”
“What, with him?” said Julian Mastakovich with a look askance at the governess`s child. “You should go into the drawing-room, my lad,” he said to him.
The boy remained silent and looked up at the man with wide-open eyes. Julian “Mastakovitch glanced round again cautiously and bent down over the girl.
“What have you got, a doll, my dear?”
“Yes, sir.” The child quailed a little, and her brow wrinkled.
“A doll. And do you know, my dear, what dolls are made of?”
“No, sir,” she said weakly, and lowered her head.
“Out of rags, my dear. You, boy, you go back to the drawing-room, to the children,” said Julian Mastakovich, looking at the boy sternly.
The two children frowned. They caught hold of each other and would not part.
“And do you know why they gave you the doll?” asked Julian Mastakovich, dropping his voice lower and lower.
“No.”
“Because you were a good, very good little girl the whole week.”
Saying which, Julian Mastakovich was seized with a paroxysm of agitation. He looked round and said in a tone faint, almost inaudible with excitement and impatience:
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