She looked contempt. "Well, you've won. Come down Sunday afternoon.
I suppose I'll have to endure it."
"Hilda, you're wrong. I will NOT come!" He was angry, but his mind
was confused. He loved her with all the strength of his simple,
straightforward nature. Therefore he appeared at his worst before
her--usually either incoherent or dumb. It was not surprising that
whenever it was suggested that only a superior man could get on so well
as he did, she always answered: "He works twice as hard as any one
else, and you don't need much brains if you'll work hard."
She now cut him short. "If you don't come I'll have to suffer for it,"
she said. "You MUST come! I'll not be glad to see you. But if you
don't come I'll never speak to you again!" And she left him and went
to the other counter and ordered the chickens from Schwartz.
Heilig was wretched,--another of those hideous dilemmas over which he
had been stumbling like a drunken man in a dark room full of furniture
ever since he let his mother go to Mrs. Brauner and ask her for Hilda.
He watched Hilda's splendid back, and fumbled about, upsetting bottles
and rattling dishes, until she went out with a glance of jeering scorn.
Schwartz burst out laughing.
"Anybody could tell you are in love," he said. "Be stiff with her,
Otto, and you'll get her all right. It don't do to let a woman see
that you care about her. The worse you treat the women the better they
like it. When they used to tell my father about some woman being crazy
over a man, he always used to say, 'What sort of a scoundrel is he?'
That was good sense."
Otto made no reply. No doubt these maxims were sound and wise; but how
was he to apply them? How could he pretend indifference when at sight
of her he could open his jaws only enough to chatter them, could loosen
his tongue only enough to roll it thickly about? "I can work," he said
to himself, "and I can pay my debts and have something over; but when
it comes to love I'm no good."