"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 smile, which was not altogether without a tinge of irony.
Cornelius reflected for a moment; he evidently was struggling against 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 meanness! If I thus give 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-morrow we 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 miser over his first or last piece of gold; as the mother over her child; as the wounded over the last drop of blood in his veins; watch over it, Rosa! Some voice within me tells me that it will be our saving, that it will be a source of good to us."
"Be easy, Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, with a sweet mixture of melancholy and gravity, "be easy; your wishes are commands to me."
"And even," continued Van Baerle, warming 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 moment to sacrifice me, who am only still living through 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 room in your heart left for other affections."
Saying this, she fled.
Cornelius, after this, passed one of the worst nights he ever had in his life.
Rosa was vexed with him, and with good 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 most strongly inclined to regret the loss of Rosa; and when, at about three in the morning, he fell asleep overcome with fatigue, and harassed with remorse, the grand black tulip yielded precedence in his dreams to the sweet blue eyes of the fair maid of Friesland.