Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/125

 returned to the town where they lived to repeat his offer personally.

How embarrassed they had been when he appeared; almost as if they were ashamed of themselves! Hron told them as tactfully as possible that his position would assure their daughter a life free of cares, and all the comforts she had been used to in her own home.

The girl had seemed almost in despair. This time her father spoke for her. He did not refuse Hron’s offer, but asked for a respite: ‘Wait a month or two or perhaps six months; have patience,’ he said. ‘You do not know how much we all have suffered; everything is changed. And we have to see to many things. I know you are a generous man, you have proved it by returning now that we are in trouble. It is not every man who thinks as you do.’

Ivan Hron did wait for a whole six months; after that he wrote again, urgently, almost imploringly. It was not the general manager of an important banking combine who spoke in these letters, but a young enthusiast. And Magda became his own. Her father wrote to him that she consented. Then Hron had married her.