“I protest that I love your daughter.  I wish above all things to make her my wife.”

“Many things men desire, that they come not near to.  My daughter is to another man promised.”

“Look you, Councillor, that would be monstrous.  Your daughter loves me.”

Joris turned white to the lips.  “It is not the truth,” he answered in a slow, husky voice.

“By the sun in heaven, it is the truth!  Ask her.”

“Then a great scoundrel are you, unfit with honest men to talk.  Ho!  Yes, your sword pull from its scabbard.  Strike.  To the heart strike me.  Less wicked would be the deed than the thing you have done.”

“In faith, sir, ’tis no crime to win a woman’s love.”

“No crime it would be to take the guilders from my purse, if my consent was to it.  But into my house to come, and while warm was yet my welcome, with my bread and wine in your lips, to take my gold, a shame and a crime would be.  My daughter than gold is far more precious.”

There was something very impressive in the angry sorrow of Joris.  It partook of his own magnitude.  Standing in front of him, it was impossible for Captain Hyde not to be sensible of the difference between his own slight, nervous frame, and the fair, strong massiveness of Van Heemskirk; and, in a dim way, he comprehended that this physical difference was only the outward and visible sign of a mental and moral one quite as positive and unchangeable.

Yet he persevered in his solicitation.  With a slight impatience of manner he said, “Do but hear me, sir.  I have done nothing contrary to the custom of people in my condition, and I assure you that with all my soul I love your daughter.”

“Love!  So talk you.  You see a girl beautiful, sweet, and innocent.  Your heart, greedy and covetous, wants her as it has wanted, doubtless, many others.  For yourself only you seek her.  And what is it you ask then!  That she should give up for you her father, mother, home, her own faith, her own people, her own country,—­the poor little one!—­for a cold, cheerless land among strangers, alone in the sorrows and pains that to all women come.  Love!  In God’s name, what know you of love?”

“No man can love her better.”

“What say you?  How, then, do I love her?  I who carried her—­mijn witte lammetje—­in these arms before yet she could say to me, ’Fader’!” His wrath had been steadily growing, in spite of the mist in his eyes and the tenderness in his voice; and suddenly striking the desk a ponderous blow with his closed hand, he said with an unmistakable passion, “My daughter you shall not have.  God in heaven to himself take her ere such sorrow come to her and me!”

[Illustration:  “Sir, you are very uncivil”]

“Sir, you are very uncivil; but I am thankful to know so much of your mind.  And, to be plain with you, I am determined to marry your daughter if I can compass the matter in any way.  It is now, then, open war between us; and so, sir, your servant.”