"This will help you awhile," said Ziska, "and if Nina will come round
and be a good girl, neither you nor she shall want anything; and she
need not be afraid of mother, if she will only do as I say." Balatka
had put out his hand and had taken the money, when the bedroom door was
opened, and Nina came in.

"What, Ziska," said she, "are you here?"

"Why not? why should I not see my uncle?"

"It is very good of you, certainly; only, as you never came before--"

"I mean it for kindness, now I have come, at any rate," said Ziska.

"Then I will take it for kindness," said Nina.

"Why should there be quarrelling among relatives?" said the old man
from among the bed-clothes.

"Why, indeed?" said Ziska.

"Why, indeed," said Nina, "--if it could be helped?"

She knew that the outward serenity of the words spoken was too good to
be a fair representation of thoughts below in the mind of any of them.
It could not be that Ziska had come there to express even his own
consent to her marriage with Anton Trendellsohn; and without such
consent there must of necessity be a continuation of quarrelling. "Have
you been speaking to father, Ziska, about those papers?" Nina was
determined that there should be no glozing of matters, no soft words