"His friends, sir, are the sons of my friends. I will loudly proclaim you what you truly are: a brave man, a loyal soldier, a noble gentleman! Nicolaes has told me every phase of his association with you, from his shameful proposal to you in regard to his own sister, down to this moment when you still desired that Gilda and I should remain in ignorance of his guilt." "What is the good, mynheer, of raking up all this past?" said the philosopher lightly, "I would that Mynheer Nicolaes had known how to hold his tongue." "Thank God that he did not," retorted Cornelius Beresteyn hotly, "had he done so I stood in peril of failing--for the first time in my life--in an important business obligation." "Not towards me, mynheer, at any rate." "Yes, sir, towards you," affirmed Beresteyn decisively. "I promised you five hundred thousand guilders if you brought my daughter safely back to me. I know from mine own son, sir, that I owe her safety to no one but to you." "Ours was an ignoble bargain, mynheer," said Diogenes with his wonted gaiety, and though she could not see him, Gilda could picture his face now alive with merriment and suppressed laughter. "The humour of the situation appealed to me--it proved irresistible--but the bargain in no way binds you seeing that it was I who had been impious enough to lay hands upon your daughter." "At my son's suggestion I know," rejoined Beresteyn quietly, "and from your subsequent acts, sir, I must infer that you only did it because you felt that she was safer under your charge than at the mercy of her own brother and his friends.... Nay! do not protest," he added earnestly, "Nicolaes, as you see, is of the same opinion." "May Heaven reward you, sir, for that kindly thought of me," said Diogenes more seriously, "it will cheer me in the future, when I and all my doings will have faded from your ken." "You are not leaving Holland, sir?" "Not just now, mynheer, while there is so much fighting to be done. The Stadtholder hath need of soldiers...." "And he will, sir, find none better than you throughout the world. And with a goodly fortune to help you...." "Speak not of that, mynheer," he said firmly, "I could not take your money. If I did I should never know a happy hour again." "Oh!"