Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/199

 It is possible that anyone else, would have snatched his hat and quitted her at once. Even Poldik thought of leaving her, but his heart took a considerable step higher, he mastered himself and said, “And what if I should still wish for the boy.” He thought to himself, is it possible that she does not trust him to my charge. On this, Malka said, “I, still, shall not give him to you.”

Then at last Poldik stretched out his hand for his hat, and was departing: only instead of good bye, he said, “I did not think it of you.”

And here Malka looked at him almost with anguish and said, “Do not take it amiss, Poldik, dear. But you wish to make all your boys wherrymen.”

“Well, and what is the harm of that?” said Poldik, with a certain stubbornness which carried with it a touch of reproach to Malka.

“I do not wish to make a wherryman of him,” said Malka.

“Your boy has not to be a wherryman,” asked Poldik, and he felt as though he had come to the end of all his latinity.

“What then is he to be?” he added.

“His father perished on the water: I cannot look any longer at the water without crying, I should be miserable every day if my child had to be on the water for the whole day.”

That was a reason with which Poldik could hardly quarrel—it carried conviction with it. He laid his