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Page 88
"That's it! that's it!" cried Cornelius; "and you are a
perfect gardener, my pretty Rosa. But I am afraid the
nursing of my tulip will take up all your time."
"Yes, it will," said Rosa; "but never mind. Your tulip is my
daughter. I shall devote to it the same time as I should to
a child of mine, if I were a mother. Only by becoming its
mother," Rosa added, smilingly, "can I cease to be its
rival."
"My kind and pretty Rosa!" muttered Cornelius casting on her
a glance in which there was much more of the lover than of
the gardener, and which afforded Rosa some consolation.
Then, after a silence of some moments, during which
Cornelius had grasped through the openings of the grating
for the receding hand of Rosa, he said, --
"Do you mean to say that the bulb has now been in the ground
for six days?"
"Yes, six days, Mynheer Cornelius," she answered.
"And it does not yet show leaf"
"No, but I think it will to-morrow."
"Well, then, to-morrow you will bring me news about it, and
about yourself, won't you, Rosa? I care very much for the
daughter, as you called it just now, but I care even much
more for the mother."
"To-morrow?" said Rosa, looking at Cornelius askance. "I
don't know whether I shall be able to come to-morrow."
"Good heavens!" said Cornelius, "why can't you come
to-morrow?"
"Mynheer Cornelius, I have lots of things to do."
"And I have only one," muttered Cornelius.
"Yes," said Rosa, "to love your tulip."
"To love you, Rosa."
Rosa shook her head, after which followed a pause.
"Well," -- Cornelius at last broke the silence, -- "well,
Rosa, everything changes in the realm of nature; the flowers
of spring are succeeded by other flowers; and the bees,
which so tenderly caressed the violets and the wall-flowers,
will flutter with just as much love about the honey-suckles,
the rose, the jessamine, and the carnation."
"What does all this mean?" asked Rosa.
"You have abandoned me, Miss Rosa, to seek your pleasure
elsewhere. You have done well, and I will not complain. What
claim have I to your fidelity?"
"My fidelity!" Rosa exclaimed, with her eyes full of tears,
and without caring any longer to hide from Cornelius this
dew of pearls dropping on her cheeks, "my fidelity! have I
not been faithful to you?"
"Do you call it faithful to desert me, and to leave me here
to die?"
"But, Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, "am I not doing
everything for you that could give you pleasure? have I not
devoted myself to your tulip?"
"You are bitter, Rosa, you reproach me with the only
unalloyed pleasure which I have had in this world."
"I reproach you with nothing, Mynheer Cornelius, except,
perhaps, with the intense grief which I felt when people
came to tell me at the Buytenhof that you were about to be
put to death."
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