Malzin shuddered slightly, but merely said, "I congratulate you!"
"Malzin would never have forgiven himself if your bargain had turned out a poor one," sneered Kilary.
There was something in his irony that irritated Capriani, a rebellion of caste against the autocracy of money, which he chose to punish. As he was powerless with Kilary he turned to Malzin and said in a tone of insolent authority, "Malzin, get me the map of Bohemia that lies on my writing-table." At a moment like this the thin varnish of refinement which contact with the world had imparted was rubbed off entirely, he showed himself in all his coarseness, and this not through any recklessness, but intentionally, in the consciousness that he, Alfred Capriani might do as he chose. At a moment like this he delighted in treading beneath his feet all who did not prostrate themselves before his millions.
Malzin had attained a height where such insults did not reach him. But the blood mounted to the cheek of the mistress of the mansion. "Arthur, go and get the map!" she said gently.
Fritz languidly prevented him. "You do not know where the thing is," he said good-humouredly and left the room.
Capriani went on pacing the spacious apartment in long strides. "They are all alike, these blockheads," he muttered, "when they take it into their heads to work they are more stupid than ever. Old Malzin tried everything; he ruined himself in artificial madder-red, in lager beer, in sugar and in stocks,--and it never occurred to him that millions were lying in the ground beneath his feet."
Malzin returned with the map and as every table was overcrowded with bibelots and jardinières, it was spread out upon the piano. Capriani eagerly travelled over it with his pudgy forefinger. "The track of the new railway must go here, between the iron works and Schneeburg."
"Then it must go a very long round," Arthur remarked, "can you obtain the permit?"
Capriani stuck a thumb in an arm-hole of his waistcoat and smiled.
"Malzin, you know the estates around here; to whom does that belong?" pointing to a spot upon the map.
"That belongs to Kamenz," said Malzin bending forward, and fitting his eye-glass in his eye.
"Then it comes to whether the interests of these gentlemen jump with your own," Arthur observed. "If they should work against you, you never can obtain the permit."