^:<#Nrj«^ 
 
 
 K.m 

 
 LI E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVER5 ITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 8-2.3 
 ScV\95o
 
 o/.
 
 AN OLD MAID'S LOVE, 
 
 A DUTCH TALE TOLD IN ENGLISH. 
 
 MAARTEN MAARTENS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "THE SIN OF JOOST AVELINGH." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 PuWisfjtts in ©rtjinars to ^n ilHajestg tfjc ©ucen. 
 1891. 
 
 IThe right of translation is reserved.^
 
 N: 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 TO 
 
 REGINALD STANLEY FABER 
 
 THE AUTHOR OFFERS THE DEDICATION 
 
 ^* OF THIS BOOK, 
 
 AS A RECOGNITION OF KINDNESS IN THE PAST 
 AND A PLEA FOR FUTURE FRIENDSHIP.
 
 Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 witin funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/oldmaidslovedutc01maar
 
 So many kindly critics have spoken of my 
 
 former book, " The Sin of Joost AveHngh," 
 
 as being a translation from the Dutch, that 
 
 1 must here state that it was originally written 
 
 in English, and that the present story, now 
 
 for the first time published, has also been 
 
 written in English only, a language which, 
 
 though not my native tongue, has become 
 
 to me quite as dear and, I would fain hope, 
 
 almost as familiar. 
 
 IVI. M. 
 
 KoopsTAD, Holland, 
 January 8, 1891.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 I. The Calm before the Storm ... i 
 
 II. Aunt and Nephew ... ... ii 
 
 III. In his Teens ... ... ... 27 
 
 IV. And out of them ... .:. 34 
 V. Knight-Errant ... ... ... 39 
 
 VI. On Hospitable Thoughts intent 50 
 
 VII. Parson Jakob ... ... ... 60 
 
 VIII. First Appearance of Tante Crcesus 67 
 
 IX. Who cooks a Pretty Kettle of Fish 82 
 
 X. Punctuality and the Paragon ... 96 
 
 XI. Grapes, Sour and Sweet ... ... 113 
 
 XII. Dorothy asks a Question and receives 
 
 AN Answer ... ... ... 127 
 
 XIII. A Storm in an Egg-cup ... 150 
 
 XIV. Un Abbe a Marier ... ... 168 
 
 XV. The Beauty of Danger ... 194
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVI. And the Danger of Beauty ... 213 
 
 XVII. Suzanna's Victories ... ... 226 
 
 XVIII. The Pursuit of Vice ... ... 236 
 
 XIX. Arnout's Portmanteau remains un- 
 packed ... ... ... 256
 
 AN OLD MAID'S LOVE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 
 
 It was on a golden summer evening — a long 
 June sunset, soft and silent — that Mephisto 
 crept into the quiet old heart of Suzanna 
 Varelkamp. 
 
 She was sitting in the low verandah of her 
 cottage on the Wyker Road, with her grey 
 knitting in her hands. She always had that 
 grey knitting in her hands. If it rested on 
 her knees for one brief moment, her friends 
 could tell you that some singularly difficult 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 2 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 question — probably of abstruse theology, or 
 else about the linen-basket or the preserves 
 — was troubling Suzanna's mind. Suzanna 
 was a woman of industrious repose. She 
 loved her God and her store-cupboard. 
 She did not, as a rule, love her neighbour 
 over much — little unpleasantnesses in con- 
 nection with the overhanging apples, or 
 Suzanna's darling cat, were apt to intervene 
 and stifle the seeds of dutifully nurtured 
 benevolence. Nor did she love herself to 
 any excess of unrighteousness, knowing, 
 with a perfervid knowledge, that she was 
 altogether abominable and corrupt, and 
 "even as a beast before Thee," from her 
 mother's womb upwards — a remote period. 
 
 The gentle laburnum at her side was 
 slowly gilding over in the sinking sunlight, 
 fragile and drooping and a little lack-a- 
 daisical, very unlike the natty old woman, 
 bolt-upright in her basket-chair. Just across
 
 THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 3 
 
 the road a knot of poplars quivered to the 
 still air, and in the pale, far heaven, companies 
 of swallows circled with rapid, aimless 
 swoops. Nature was slowly — very, very 
 slowly, tranquilly, dreamingly, deliciously, 
 settling itself to sleep — silent already but for 
 a blackbird shrilling excitedly through the 
 jasmine-bushes by the porch. 
 
 Another bird woke up at that moment, 
 and cried out from Suzanna's bedroom — 
 through all the quiet little house — that it was 
 half-past seven. Then he went to sleep 
 again for exactly half an hour, for, like 
 all man's imitations of God's works, he is 
 too hideously logical to be artistic. And 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp began to wonder 
 why Betje did not bring out the "tea-water,'' 
 for every evening the sun went down at 
 another moment — Providence, being all- 
 provident, was able to superintend such 
 irregularities — but every evening, at half-past
 
 4 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 seven to the minute, Mejuffrouw Varelkamp 
 must have her " tea-water," or the Httle 
 cosmos of her household arrangements could 
 not survive the shock. '' It is difficult enough 
 for one woman to superintend one servant ! " 
 said Suzanna. " It is possible, but it is all- 
 engrossing, and requires concentration of 
 power and of will. And, not being Pro- 
 vidence, I cannot regulate disorder." The 
 " regulation of disorder," as she called it — the 
 breaking away from straight lines and simple 
 addition — was one of Suzanna's bugbears. 
 And so Betje was efficiently superintended ; 
 none but she knew how engrossingly. And, 
 evening after evening, the cuckoo stepped 
 over his threshold, and Betje out of her 
 kitchen, so harmoniously, that you might 
 almost have fancied they walked in step. 
 
 Somebody was coming up the quiet road, 
 a Dutch road, straight and tidy, avenue- 
 like, between its double border of majestic
 
 THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 5 
 
 beeches, — somebody whose walk sounded un- 
 rhythmic through the stillness — two people 
 evidently, and not walking in step, these two 
 — one with a light, light-hearted swing, the 
 other with a melancholy thump, and a little 
 skip to make it good again. But their 
 whistling, the sweet, low whistling of an old 
 Reformed psalm-tune, was in better unison 
 than their walking, though even here, per- 
 haps, the softer voice seemed just a shade 
 too low. Had there been all the falseness 
 of a German band in that subdued music, 
 Suzanna would not have detected it ; her 
 heart — and that far more than her ear — 
 recognized with tranquil contentment the 
 drawn-out melody, calm and plaintive, and 
 her bright eye brightened, for just one little, 
 unnoticeable moment, at the accents of the 
 clearer voice. That sudden brightening 
 would flash every now and then over a face 
 hard and cold enough by nature ; nobody
 
 6 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 ever noticed it except Suzanna's sister, the 
 rich widow Barsselius, not Suzanna herself, 
 least of all the young scapegrace who was its 
 only cause. 
 
 Dutch psalm-singing leaves plenty of time 
 for the singers to go to sleep and wake up 
 again between each succeeding note. The 
 whistlers came into sight before they had 
 finished many lines. They stopped suddenly 
 upon perceiving the old lady under the 
 verandah, and both took oft" their hats. 
 
 *' Domine," said Suzanna, " how can you 
 countenance whistling the word of God ? " 
 
 The young man thus addressed looked up 
 with a quiet twinkle in his eye. He had 
 a pale face and a thoughtful smile ; he was 
 slightly deformed, and it was he that walked 
 lame. 
 
 '' With pipe and with timbrel, Juffrouw," 
 he answered gaily. '' Old Baas Vroom has 
 just been telling me that he won't give up
 
 THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 7 
 
 smoking, in spite of the doctor, because he 
 has read in his Bible how the people praised 
 the Lord with their pipes." 
 
 Suzanna never smiled unless she approved 
 of the joke. She reverenced the minister, 
 and she patronised the young believer ; it 
 was difficult sometimes properly to blend the 
 two feelings. But, at the bottom of her 
 tough old heart, she thoroughly liked her 
 nephew's friend. "He will make a capital 
 pastor," she said to herself (unconsciously), 
 " when he has unlearned a little of his so- 
 called morality and taken in good sound 
 theology instead. Not the milk of the 
 Word with Professor Wyfel's unfiltered 
 water, but strong meat with plenty of Old 
 Testament sap." 
 
 " Come in here," she said severely, " I 
 want to talk to you about that Vrouw Wede. 
 I told her this morning that she could not 
 have any more needlework from the Society
 
 8 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 unless she sent her son to the catechising. 
 She says the boy's father won't have him go, 
 because it tires his head. And I warned 
 her I should report her to the Domine." 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp's voice always 
 dropped into exactly the same tone of here- 
 ditary reverence over that word. " Come 
 in, Jakob, and you shall have a ' cat's 
 tongue,' * even though it isn't Sunday." 
 
 Betje had brought out the tea-things mean- 
 while, triumphantly, under cover of the 
 minister's presence, the shining copper peat- 
 stove and the costly little Japanese tea-cups, 
 not much larger than a thimble, on their 
 lacquered tray. " Take away the tea-stove, 
 Betje," said Suzanna. '' The peat smells." 
 She said so every now and then — once a 
 week, perhaps — being firmly convinced of 
 the truth of her assertion, and Betje, who 
 never believed her, and who never smelled 
 * A kind of biscuit. -
 
 TPIE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 9 
 
 aiiything under carbolic acid, whisked away 
 the bright pail and kettle from beside her 
 mistress's chair and brought them back again 
 unaltered. ''That is right, Betje," said 
 Mejuffrouw. " How often must I tell you 
 that a stove which smells of peat is full proof 
 in itself of an incompetent servant ? " 
 
 ''Humph," said Betje. For even the very 
 best of housekeepers have their little failings, 
 and fancies, and fads. 
 
 " Come in, Jakob," said Suzanna. " Not 
 you, Arnout. You can go down to the 
 village and fetch me a skein of my dark grey 
 wool. The dark grey, mind, at twelve 
 stivers. You know which." 
 
 " You know which ! " The young man 
 had grown up with the dark grey wool and 
 the light grey wool and the blue wool for 
 a border. Ten stivers, twelve stivers, four- 
 teen stivers. He knew them better than his 
 catechism, and he knew that very well too.
 
 lO AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 He touched his hat slightly — he was 
 always courteous to his aunt, as who would 
 not have been ? — and he strolled away down 
 the green highway into the shadows and the 
 soft, w^arm sunset, taking up, as he went, 
 the old psalm-tune that had been on his lips 
 before. 
 
 It was the melody of the fifty-first psalm. 
 Suzanna had good cause to remember it in 
 after years. 
 
 And it was into this calm green paradise 
 of an old maid's heart, a paradise of straight 
 gravel-paths and clipped box-trees and neat 
 dahlia beds, that soft Mephisto crept.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. 
 
 Arnout — or Arnold — Oostrum was twenty ; 
 straight-limbed — not, thank God ! with that 
 gnawing pain in the thigh like his friend 
 Jakob te Bakel ; broad-chested and strong- 
 hearted, or, at least, so he thought. A young 
 fellow with a capital digestion, and a bright 
 contentment with himself and all the world 
 about him. Ready to please everybody — 
 himself included — as much as lay in his power, 
 and convinced that a good deal did lie in his 
 power, as what young fellow of twenty is not ? 
 A good digestion. Oh, mystic charm of the 
 words to those who have lost their meaning ! 
 Men speak of a proud stomach. They should
 
 12 AX OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 speak also of a happy, a contented one. No 
 wonder he carries his head high who can 
 rely upon that lower organ. No pestilence 
 can smite him by day, no poisonous heart- 
 pang by night. The conscience seldom 
 awakes till the stomach has gone to sleep. 
 And our bowels of compassion — ah well, 
 some sad thoughts are best left unspoken, for 
 fear of a world that too easily cries " Fie ! " 
 
 Is life worth living ? The question has 
 been debated by many of the wisest through 
 the ages ; and at last there came a great 
 unknovvn philosopher, and he quietly laid 
 the answer at the feet of that sage of sages, 
 Punch. " It depends," said that great 
 teacher, *' on the liver." 
 
 To Arnout Oostrum life was very much 
 worth living indeed. He had never felt 
 another pain than toothache or a thrashing. 
 Not that his aunt had ever struck him in her 
 life. No, no ; that would have seemed a
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. 1 3 
 
 "ruit coelum " to the boy, whose punish- 
 ments, insignificant enough in themselves, 
 had been terrible because so rare. His 
 masters, with whom he had more frequently 
 come into conflict, had only treated him to 
 that civilised torture of extra tasks which has 
 completely replaced corporal chastisement in 
 Dutch schools ; the blows and buffets, there- 
 fore, which he had received during his 
 passage through the world thus far were 
 such as fall to the lot of each one of us, and 
 are usually dealt us by our most familiar 
 friends. Early in life, some of his school- 
 fellows had licked him, and he had licked 
 many more. And nature had been very 
 gracious to him, and had permitted him to 
 swallow with impunity a larger number of 
 unripe apples than can be safely stowed away 
 by most other boys of his size. 
 
 His very earliest recollections were of 
 contentment and enjoyment — play, pleasure,
 
 14 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 and sugar-plums ; a placid sea, with occa- 
 sional storm-flashes ; a kind lady, who was 
 always kind, and a kind gentleman who could 
 sometimes be passionate ; and then the kind 
 lady alone, kinder than ever, but often very 
 sad ; and then — 
 
 Then the first bright flash In the haze, 
 fixed In a clearness of unchangeable light, 
 against a dark background. The low room, 
 looking out into the garden, with the bunches 
 of red flowers on the carpet, and himself, at 
 hvQ years old, in a black frock. He had 
 been playing with the old soldier-doll that had 
 lost Its head, " Napoleon," and an old lady 
 came In to see him. An old lady ! a female 
 Methuselah, thought Arnout, though in 
 reality Suzanna Varelkamp was then barely 
 five-and-forty ; but, if anything, It seemed 
 to him as if she had grown younger since 
 that dull autumn day when she had first 
 dawned upon his vision, prim, grey, and neat,
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. I 5 
 
 in the silence of the house grown desolate. 
 "Your mother is in heaven, Arnout," she 
 had said, by no means unkindly, '' and your 
 
 father is in Ah, well ! God Almighty 
 
 and the devil must settle that between them 
 — it's no business of yours or mine, thank 
 the Lord — and you must come away with 
 me. Don't cry!" — this rather nervously; not 
 that he was thinking of crying — ''it's babyish 
 to cry. I shall get you a new doll, and you 
 mustn't break its head. Good children never 
 break their toys. I have all my own toys 
 at home, done up in tissue-paper, that I 
 played with when I was a little girl ; and 
 you shall see some of them, perhaps, when 
 you are very good indeed." A bold promise, 
 that last one. She made it with some trepi- 
 dation. She could have given no greater 
 proof of her anxiety to please her little 
 nephew. 
 
 " That must have been a very long time
 
 1 6 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 ago," said Arnout, with a child's grave stress 
 upon the word. The antiquity of toys had 
 never been so clearly borne in upon his 
 mind. But he hugged Napoleon tightly to 
 his breast. He had no intention of giving 
 up Napoleon. 
 
 His aunt laughed. She could always 
 enjoy a joke at her own expense ; and cheap 
 every-day vanities were not a part of her 
 nature. 
 
 ''We shall get on very well, I have no 
 doubt," she said afterwards to the child as 
 they sat in the railway carriage. " You are 
 not accustomed to old ladies, and I am not 
 accustomed to little boys. But we shall 
 manage. You must always be literally 
 obedient, and I shall always be absolutely 
 just. 
 
 " Where do the cows sleep at night ? " 
 queried little Arnout. 
 
 " They lie down on the ground," replied
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. I 7 
 
 his aunt shortly. She had hoped that her 
 words would impress him more. 
 
 But at this answer Arnout burst out cry- 
 ing — much to the good Juffrouw's dismay. 
 She had seen children cry before, un- 
 doubtedly, but she had never had to bear 
 the responsibility of their tears, and, worst 
 of all, had never been required to arrest 
 them. She tried kind inquiry into the cause 
 of his sorrow, and then, finding that unavail- 
 ing, stern injunction to desist. She felt that 
 she must be gentle, but, above all things, 
 she must be just. Why not tell her what 
 had made him unhappy ? The boy shook 
 his tear-begrimed countenance and choked 
 down the sobs. It was the first little tiff be- 
 tween guardian and ward. She feared that 
 he would not be open with her. And, in the 
 very first place, he must be open with her. 
 That was the basis of all intercourse between 
 pedagogue and pupil. Her system 
 
 VOL. 1. 2
 
 1 8 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 Arnout pressed his face against the 
 window, and gasped, and gurgled, and 
 clenched his little black-gloved fists. He 
 could not confess to his aunt that the 
 servant-girl had said that his mamma was 
 underground, and that he dreaded that 
 perhaps a great fat cow would lie down on 
 her at night, and that she might not like it. 
 He could not tell her that. 
 
 '' And if your mother, who is in heaven, 
 saw you," said Suzanna Varelkamp softly, 
 '' she would like you to tell me why you 
 are unhappy. And she would like you to 
 respect me, and to — to love me, as a child 
 should those that are set above him, and 
 that are wiser than he is, and willing and 
 able to instruct him." 
 
 That was a compromise with her system, 
 an improvement on her system, and, un- 
 consciously, she obtained her end. The 
 child did not know where heaven was, but
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. 1 9 
 
 it was recognisedly a pleasant place, and 
 he felt very frightened of cows. There 
 could be no cows in heaven. 
 
 He turned round from the carriage- 
 window. With one hand he clutched 
 Napoleon, and with the other he plucked 
 at his aunt's stiff shawL 
 
 " I will love you, Tante Suze," he said. 
 And he did. 
 
 But there are many kinds of love, and it 
 is not always easy to hit on the right kind 
 towards a particular person. A good deal 
 of affection is squandered or misapplied in 
 that way, and one often thinks we should be 
 surprised to discover how well we could 
 supply each other's wants, if only we learned 
 to understand them better. 
 
 Arnout began by being afraid of his aunt, 
 and anxious to appease her. He seemed 
 to have an idea that, like most heathen 
 deities, her duty was to make things un-
 
 20 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 pleasant for all around her, and that, in all 
 estimations of her character, this her un- 
 avoidable vocation must be taken into 
 account. His mother's object in life had 
 been to make herself amiable. That, em- 
 phatically, was not his aunt's. Hers was 
 rather to make herself, and everybody else, 
 better than nature had intended them to be. 
 And, as he grew older, Arnout had sense 
 enough soon to perceive that Suzanna pre- 
 ferred what she thought good to what she 
 thought agreeable. With wide-opened eyes 
 (of the soul) he discovered that her life was 
 a struggle. Marvellous discovery ! She 
 did not do what seemed most pleasant, but 
 what she considered she ought to do. And 
 she did not want him to act merely as she 
 thought fitting, but to do what she believed 
 to be right, whether he — or she, for that 
 matter — liked it or no. In spite of slips and 
 inconsistencies, the idea of duty stood out in
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. 21 
 
 the woman's dealings with those around her. 
 It forced itself into Arnout's comprehension 
 and compelled him to respect his aunt's 
 sternness, even when he rebelled against it. 
 If she was stern to him, she was almost 
 sterner to herself. 
 
 Not that he liked the sternness. Arnout 
 most unmistakably preferred doing what was 
 pleasant. It was wonderful — it seemed to 
 him — how often the o^ood and the as^reeable 
 fall together. Why always strive to separate 
 them ? The benevolent and beneficent 
 Power that rules over the affairs of men had 
 .arranged that they should combine. Aunt 
 Suzanna was always pulling them apart. 
 Things were right, with her, because they 
 were disaorreeable. Women were bad be- 
 cause they were beautiful. Arnout had a 
 weakness for a pretty face. During all the 
 dull tenour of his childhood he had never 
 known his aunt so angry as when she caught
 
 2 2 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 him kissing neighbour's CorneHe behind the 
 hen-eoop — neighbour's CorneHe, seven rosy 
 summers to his ten, and lips that could not 
 stop laughing even while they kissed him. 
 If Suzanna had ever been near striking 
 her nephew, it was on that occasion. She 
 dragged him roughly, almost fiercely, to his 
 little room over the porch, and she locked 
 him up with a chapter of Proverbs to learn, 
 of which he did not understand one word. 
 And a good thing too. 
 
 " You have more reason than most," she 
 said severely, '' to be afraid of the snares of 
 the evil one. You have a tendency to give 
 way to them. Beware of it in the days of 
 your youth." 
 
 As he grew older he questioned her, 
 half laughingly, half curiously, about his 
 '' tendency " to which she so often alluded. 
 Why was he more wicked than most boys ? 
 Was he ?
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. 23 
 
 " God forbid ! " Suzanna's uncompromising 
 justice compelled her to avow. 
 
 " Then why ? " 
 
 "Silence. You have a tendency. 'Unto 
 the third and fourth generation.' And none 
 of us are better than we need be." 
 
 ** But my mother was an angel," persisted 
 the boy. 
 
 " Yes, your mother was an angel," snapped 
 Suzanna smartly, "and you are not." 
 
 Arnout was not satisfied, and he thought 
 within himself that, the stronger was our 
 tendency to unrighteousness, the less could 
 he be blamed for indulging it just a little 
 now and then. 
 
 There were points, however, in which he 
 equalled, nay, even distanced, his aunt's fine 
 distinctions of black and grey. Everything 
 that was mean, or low, or dishonourable, his 
 soul revolted from. " My aunt's game is 
 little foxes," he used to say laughingly to
 
 24 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 his friend the Domine. '' She has a splendid 
 nose for smaller sins." And therein he 
 wronged her, in so far as he should have 
 added that, if she hunted, it was ever first 
 on her own estate. But Suzanna herself 
 had not her nephew's keen scent of what a 
 gentleman should do or leave undone. Had 
 there not been that battle-royal between 
 them, when Arnout refused to bear witness 
 who had broken the pantry window ? '' It is 
 your duty," said Suzanna solemnly, '' your 
 duty towards God and your superiors to 
 further the ends of justice by all the means 
 in your power." 
 
 "It is my duty," said Arnout stubbornly, 
 '' to myself and to my brother gentle- 
 men " — this latter very grandly — " not to 
 sneak." 
 
 '' You are worse than a heathen," cried 
 Suzanna excitedly. '' Go up to your room 
 immediately. You shall live on bread and
 
 AUNT AND NEPHEW. 25 
 
 water for a week." Which he did, much to 
 Suzanna's fiercely crushed misgiving ; but no 
 one ever knew that the culprit was Karel 
 Donselaar. 
 
 But, in spite of battles-royal and differences 
 of opinion, aunt and nephew got on far better 
 than any of the village gossips had ventured 
 to predict. Arnout could not but respect 
 his grim relative, and as long as a man 
 respects a woman, their intercourse is all 
 right. And so he endured her seventies, 
 because he saw they were never caprices, 
 and, with his far more easy-going nature, he 
 accepted her conscientious conclusions, when- 
 ever they agreed with his instincts or his 
 tastes. Fortunately, his instincts were 
 honourable, and his tastes refined. And in 
 many matters appertaining to his manliness, 
 his aunt developed a most unexpected and 
 most unrighteous sympathy. " Don't let a 
 bigger boy hit you," she said ; " strike him
 
 2^ AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 back, and beat him if you can." Arnout was 
 nothing loth to obey. Perhaps Suzanna 
 understood the nature of boys better than 
 she dared to imagine.
 
 >^^^% 
 
 ^'^^^: 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN HIS TEENS. 
 
 And so Arnout Oostrum grew up to be a 
 jolly young fellow, in love with all the world 
 around him, even with his ugly old aunt. A 
 bright young fellow, with a shock of yellow 
 hair and big good-natured eyes, one of those 
 faces that older women smile upon because 
 they look so innocently happy, and that 
 young girls turn away from because they 
 seem so dangerously full of life and fun. 
 Young Arnout Oostrum ! People smiled to 
 each other when his name was mentioned, 
 and nodded their heads. ** There's no harm 
 in Arnout Oostrum," said the old gentlemen. 
 But to that the old ladies demurred. " There
 
 28 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 is always harm," remarked one of them 
 enigmatically, " in a man in whom you can 
 see so much orood." And all the eirls of the 
 village agreed that he had the " loveliest 
 eyes." But Arnout at eighteen thought 
 little of the girls of the village, though, 
 certainly, if he noticed any of them, they 
 were the pretty ones. He liked his male 
 companions, and such time as the grammar 
 school of the neighbouring town still left at 
 his disposal he spent in rowing with them, 
 and fencing, and flying north and south over 
 the dull green plains of his fatherland, all 
 huddled up and bent double on the top of 
 a two-wheeler. And they made him captain 
 of the school eleven. Start not, athletic 
 reader ; you are still in Holland. The 
 Mynheers have taken to cricket. Well, 
 never mind ; they do their best, and the 
 flannels look picturesque everywhere. 
 
 So everybody liked young Arnout Oostrum.
 
 IN HIS TEENS. 29 
 
 There are qualities which are good in them- 
 selves, and qualities which we often think 
 far better because they prove the absence 
 of others the world particularly dislikes. 
 Arnout had a good supply of the former, 
 but he possessed perhaps still more of the 
 latter class. And he had none of that 
 obstreperous virtue which rendered people 
 so afraid of his aunt. 
 
 So he yielded to her, and made himself no 
 virtue of so doing. He yielded, because 
 really, you know, it does quite as well after 
 all. Not in the important points, mind you. 
 A fellow must keep a clear eye on his 
 honour, when dealing with women. They've 
 no idea of that, poor things, and can't help 
 themselves. But as for the rest, what does 
 It signify ? 
 
 That was Arnout's creed, and he got on 
 very comfortably with it. He had a sharp 
 tug with the old lady, when he came to
 
 30 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 leave the grammar school, and the Im- 
 portant decision had to be taken what course 
 of study he should take up at the University. 
 Suzanna had but one idea, one aspiration 
 with regard to this matter. With her own 
 overpowering reverence for the " Domine " 
 she hoped to see her nephew a minister of 
 the Established Church. And he, if he had 
 owned to any definite opinion on the subject, 
 would probably have said that preaching, 
 on the whole, was preferable to being 
 preached to. No, now he came to think of 
 it, he would rather not be a parson. '' But 
 what then ? " says Suzanna, pale with sup- 
 pressed agitation. His life — not a paltry 
 seventy winters — his life, earthly and eternal, 
 the whole immensity of a soul, his soul, hung 
 in the balance. She clasped her knitting 
 down tight upon her knees. '' Oh, anything, 
 you know," says young Hopeful. '' Pill- 
 driver. Ride about in a little carriage. Keep
 
 IN HIS TEENS. 3 1 
 
 down surplus population. Or — ah — lawyer. 
 Open prison gates, and that sort of thing. 
 And set the captive free." And then he 
 threw his arm round his aunt's neck and 
 kissed her, and wondered (to himself) how 
 her tough old heart could thump like that 
 under the coarse stuff gown. 
 
 '' I've been thinking about it in the night," 
 he remarked at breakfast next morning, 
 breaking an egg, " and I fancy I should like 
 to study theology. After all, it is, as you 
 often say, aunt, the one engrossing subject 
 in the world. And so it deserves attention. 
 I've talked it over with Jakob te Bakel, and, 
 yes, I may as well study theology." 
 
 Thinking about it in the night ! Well, if 
 from ten to a quarter-past and from half-past 
 seven to eight be night, then Arnout was 
 not the victim of an erroneous impression. 
 And he had certainly talked about the 
 subject to Jakob te Bakel, the son of a
 
 32 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 neighbouring clergyman, a young minister 
 himself now, some half a dozen years 
 Arnout's senior, and much admired by the 
 latter youth. Arnout, by-the-by, was great 
 in admiration. He had said to his friend, 
 "And now you are a parson, Jakob, do you 
 like it ? " And Jakob had answered, " Yes," 
 very quietly, and had added to himself in an 
 undertone, " Thank God ! " For all the 
 awfulness of a possible " No " had been 
 borne in upon his soul. Arnout had caught 
 the whispered words, and had walked on 
 for several moments in solemn reverential 
 silence, till Jakob spoke of something else. 
 
 He did not tell his aunt that he had taken 
 his resolve to please her, because, in the 
 absence of any decided vocation to the 
 contrary, it seemed to him a deed of honour 
 to accord her this one consummate happiness 
 in reward of all the sacrifices she was ever 
 making for his sake.
 
 IN HIS TEENS. 33 
 
 None the less, he had Httle Idea how 
 great those sacrifices were, or how much 
 anxious thought it cost her to enable him to 
 go to the University at all. Suzanna had 
 spent a sleepless night. Decidedly she took 
 life too '' vigorously." 
 
 And so at the time when first we came 
 across him, Arnout Oostrum was a theo- 
 logical student at the University of Overstad. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AND OUT OF THEM. 
 
 Our young gentleman studied theology — at 
 least, so the University calendar said. He 
 himself considered that he was making rapid 
 progress in that knowledge of human nature 
 which forms a whole " man," a wise man, 
 a man of the world. A careful distinction 
 between good wine and bad, between cheap 
 cigars and expensive ones (especially when 
 told the price), the recognition of a pretty 
 ankle in passing, and, above all, a free- 
 and-easy air — sufficiently dignified and yet 
 sufficiently familiar — towards waiters every- 
 where. A man of the world. Poor simple 
 young fellows ! Every little world has its
 
 AND OUT OF THEM. 35 
 
 own sort of "man." And there Is a con- 
 siderable difference between the cheap polish 
 of a Dutch university town and the heavily 
 gilded article as manufactured in London or 
 Paris. Both, however, have this much in 
 common, that neither is " warranted to last." 
 A Dutch university is not, alas ! an edify- 
 ing academy to study human nature at. 
 Granted that confusion between ''mashing" 
 and manliness which comes upon most 
 hyper-civilised lads with the first bloom of 
 down on their cheeks ; granted, moreover, 
 complete immunity in public opinion for not 
 only every folly, but almost every vice, on 
 the ground that the delinquent is " a 
 student," and the result can hardly be con- 
 sidered a satisfactory one. Young Arnout 
 passed through the flames, not unscathed, 
 perhaps, yet barely singed. He did not 
 retain about him, as so many do, the smell 
 of the fire. He was sheltered by his sur-
 
 2,6 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 roundings, his companions, his " set ; " for 
 at his university and in his time the theo- 
 logical students, on the whole, with a few 
 loudly trumpeted exceptions, shone forth as 
 rare stars on a stormy night. His character 
 steadied and took definite shape, as a man's 
 character should do at this period of his life. 
 Vicious it was almost impossible for him to 
 become — his tastes recoiled too instinctively 
 from what was low and common, — but he 
 could no longer keep his eyes from looking 
 vice in the face as they never had done be- 
 fore. And that look leaves its impress on a 
 man's inmost soul, even when he turns away. 
 Superficial as he sometimes seemed, perhaps, 
 and easy-going, our hero had a passion of 
 admiration somewhere in his heart that, once 
 awakened, could not be got to sleep again. 
 That in itself was superficial, perhaps, or 
 unbalanced, or call it what you will, if you 
 care for mental dissection, for nobody quite
 
 AND OUT OF THEM. ^il 
 
 knew beforehand what would set '' the 
 tremble in his heart " a-golng. God bless 
 the young fellows of the nineteenth century 
 that still have strength of mind enough for 
 genuine admiration ! Arnout Oostrum could 
 '' get along " with everybody, except with 
 those unfortunate creatures, often harmless 
 enough in his aunt's estimation," whom he 
 designated as *' beastly cads," and turned 
 away from at once. But liking you — oh, 
 that was another matter, very akin to loving, 
 only that we men of the world hate the 
 sound of the mawkish word ; if you liked a 
 man or woman it was for something good 
 or great in them that you missed and fain 
 would have. Well, well, he was only twenty. 
 And he loved his aunt, and Jakob, and 
 Schiller, and Alfred de Musset, and Dorothy 
 up at Steenevest, who was to be his w^ife 
 some day, as every one agreed, as soon 
 as he chose to give her the opportunity of
 
 38 AX OLD maid's love. 
 
 saying " Yes." And he loved his violin, which 
 he played but indifferently, and life, and the 
 golden summer time, when the air was heavy 
 with enjoyment. In love with the world 
 around him, in a word, and with himself as 
 its centre-point. 
 
 And so he went down the dusty road in 
 the soft, sweet-smelling gloaming, with the 
 drowsy old tune on his lips, and his heart 
 full of the new-mown hay and the jasmine. 
 And he stopped, where the heavy bushes 
 burst forward over the path with their 
 luxuriance of a thousand creamy stars, and 
 broke off one or two of them, half regret- 
 fully for the life he was destroying. And 
 then he sprang back upon the roadway with 
 a bound full of youth and health and hap- 
 piness. 
 
 And so he turned the corner of his fate.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 KNIGHT-ERRANT. 
 
 A CONVEYANCE of some kind or other, evi- 
 dently a shabby concern, was standing in 
 the middle of the road at a considerable 
 distance from the turning Arnout had just 
 taken. Was it standing or lying? It looked 
 all the more disreputable from its having 
 sunk awry with so dead-drunk an appear- 
 ance as only a human being or an old 
 vehicle can assume. Something was wrong, 
 evidently. Arnout ran forward, shading his 
 eyes with the hand that held the jasmine 
 blossoms, as the shadows fell heavy between 
 him and the group over yonder by the break 
 in the trees. Something was wrong, most
 
 40 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 certainly. The horse had been taken out. 
 It stood apart, a peasant holding it. One 
 or two other passers-by — all the "traffic" 
 which the lonely road could boast at such 
 an hour — had also stopped. Somebody was 
 sitting by the roadside, the former occupant 
 of the carriage, doubtless — a female, by Jove ! 
 Arnout's heart went pit-a-pat, with running 
 and curiosity. He stopped, breathless, a 
 few paces from the little tragi-comedy in 
 front of him. 
 
 The long white road lay warm and still 
 beneath the deepening shadows. Two men 
 and a boy, who stood staring stolidly at the 
 broken axle, smashed in two just under the 
 box, drew slow hands out of deep pockets 
 and lazily touched their caps to the new- 
 comer. The horse, limp and woe-begone 
 like the vehicle, gazed calmly at this source 
 of unexpected rest, motionless, were it not 
 for an occasional wink of its weary eye.
 
 KNIGHT-ERRANT. 4 1 
 
 Arnout, however, saw little of all this. He 
 was striving — 'twixt timidity and temerity — to 
 get a glimpse of the lady's face, not an easy 
 thing as long as she lay up against the tall 
 beech tree and turned her back towards him. 
 A slender arm was holding a handkerchief 
 over the eyes ; the figure and pose were 
 graceful ; the dress, some soft black wdth 
 a sparkle here and there, was In perfect 
 taste. Doubtless the face would be beautiful 
 too. 
 
 He coughed — a stupid little cough ; and 
 then blushed at the clumsy expedient. 
 
 The lady by the tree turned her head at 
 the sound. 
 
 It was the most beautiful face he had seen 
 in his life. 
 
 Well, yes, I believe she was a handsome 
 woman, especially at that age. Certainly 
 she was handsome. And even had she not 
 been as handsome as she was, what else
 
 42 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 could Arnout have thouQrht of her, when he 
 found her thus by the roadside ? Shall 
 carriages upset on lovely summer evenings, 
 and shall young twenty come a-down the 
 road and not be upset in his turn by the 
 sight of beautiful distress ? Fie upon young 
 twenty if so it be ! Let him never smell the 
 smell of jasmine again. 
 
 ** Mon Dieu ! " said the lady — and what 
 else should a Frenchwoman say ? " Un 
 homme comme il faut ! Quelle chance ! 
 Avow, monsieur, that you come a propos ! " 
 
 The recoofnition of his claim to that most 
 charming of all appellations pleased Arnout 
 so hugely that he felt at his ease at once. 
 But, alas ! he knew that his French was rusty, 
 and he bitterly regretted lost opportunities 
 as he stammered out his reply — 
 
 If he could be of any use in any possible 
 manner ! If there was anything that madame 
 would desire to have done ! If she would
 
 KNIGHT-ERRANT. 43 
 
 but give expression to her wishes — But the 
 lady interrupted him sharply, though with 
 the sweetest of smiles — 
 
 "Si — si — si," she said. ''But without 
 doubt, monsieur, there are a hundred things 
 at least you can do for me. You can settle 
 with the bonhomme over there, and you can 
 procure me another conveyance, and you can 
 help me into it, and, if you are a doctor, you 
 can cure me, for I have broken my foot." 
 
 " Broken her foot ! " Arnout's face showed 
 the deep commiseration which his powers of 
 language — especially of foreign language — 
 were quite inadequate to express. Some 
 idiotic conception of a complimient about 
 breaking any number of hearts, millions — 
 myriads — floated across his brain, but he 
 fortunately did not feel capable of expressing 
 it elegantly, so he merely said instead — 
 " Does it hurt ? " 
 " If it hurts ? " repeated the Frenchwoman,
 
 44 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 Still smiling. " I am suffering agonies. 
 What will you have ? They must be borne." 
 
 Her face was white with pain, and she 
 set her lips hard between the smiles. She 
 drew her dress up slightly, thereby just show- 
 ing enough of the lovely injured member, 
 and then fell back again with a gasp. " I 
 cannot move myself," she said faintly. " The 
 — the bag. In the carriage ! There is eau- 
 de-cologne." 
 
 Arnout, who had been standing like a 
 booby, fiddling at his jasmine twigs, woke up 
 immediately at this sign of positive suffering. 
 He was inside the old caleche in a moment. 
 He had found the most exquisite of dressing- 
 bags — or so it seemed to the simple country 
 lad — a marvel of soft leather and sweet violet. 
 He had selected from half a dozen silver 
 flasks — what an age lost In the seeking ! — ■ 
 the one he was in search of. He had cauo-ht 
 up a couple of handkerchiefs from the bag —
 
 KXIGIIT-ERRANT. 45 
 
 soft and small, they seemed to him like puffs 
 of dandelion seed — and he was back by the 
 side of the lovely creature on the grass. The 
 boors stood staring open-mouthed. 
 
 Then our hero drew a small pair of scissors 
 from his pocket and cut away the first Paris- 
 made boot he had ever seen in his life from 
 the first Parisian foot. His heart trembled, 
 but not his hand, as a deep-drawn sob of 
 mingled pain and relief broke from the 
 sufferer. He went back to the carriao:e and 
 got one of its faded cushions, which looked 
 more sordid than ever under that Cinderella 
 foot. What a cushion for such a jewel ! 
 
 '' If I had only a little brandy ! " he said. 
 
 '' You will find some in the carriage," 
 whispered the patient. '' The little bottle 
 under the livre d'heures. It is the littlest 
 bottle of all, you will understand, monsieur, 
 that is the brandy-flask." She smiled again, 
 as she painfully gasped out the words, smiled
 
 46 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 at the feeling in her own heart which prompted 
 those words to the lad. 
 
 And Arnout, having done all he could for 
 the moment, retired to consult with the 
 driver. From him he learned the cause of 
 the accident, not that he had doubted it from 
 the first. There is no road in Holland so 
 narrow, no village-street so frequented, but it 
 can have its steam-tramways crashing along 
 it. The worse for you, if your horses object 
 to the sight or the sound, or if there is no 
 room for them to swerve aside between the 
 rails and the ditch. Arnout Varelkamp 
 understood all about the sudden wrench and 
 the broken axle. The lady, who had started 
 from her seat, had lost her balance and fallen 
 out on the road. She was driving back to 
 Overstad. One of the men could go to the 
 village for another carriage. They would 
 probably have a conveyance there of some 
 sort. He could be back with it in an hour, or
 
 KNIGHT-ERRANT. 47 
 
 may be In an hour and a half. There would 
 be no more trams passing till half-past nine. 
 Mynheer saw that It was getting dark. 
 
 Yes, yes ; Arnout knew all that. He 
 looked at his watch. Ten minutes to eight. 
 Could the delicate woman on the grass be 
 left lying there for another hour ? And 
 supposing she could, how could she bear 
 the long drive to the city, or even to the 
 wretched Inn at the village ? He stood 
 there undecided. He looked at the driver 
 in despair — at the harmless, useless peasants 
 In disgust. Why could they not find a 
 sensible solution of the difficulty ? Why 
 need they stare unmeaningly at his every 
 movement ? Fools ! 
 
 The driver was depressed by his own 
 misfortune. Selfish brute ! 
 
 But what would his aunt say ? He grew 
 hot and cold at the thought. Well, there 
 was no help for it.
 
 48 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 " Madame," he began resolutely, advancing 
 aeain to the stranorer, who was now half 
 unconscious between the Increasing gloom 
 around her and the pain of her foot. " We 
 shall have to carry you as best we can to the 
 nearest house. I regret deeply. There is 
 no other way. Can you bear It ? " 
 
 '' Faites, monsieur," she murmured. '* Mais 
 faites vite." 
 
 How much money had he In his pocket ? 
 More than he could spare. Not enough, 
 perhaps, to pay for the carriage, and he 
 would fain have paid for the damage also. 
 He had seen a purse in the dressing-bag ; 
 his cheek glowed at the Idea of touching it. 
 He went over to the cabman and gave him 
 the address of his university rooms. His 
 aunt must not know. 
 
 Then he summoned the two peasants, and 
 they moved slowly forward, all In a lump. 
 And the little boy lifted up his voice and 
 said, '' I'll carry something."
 
 KNIGHT-ERRAXT. 49 
 
 It was not an easy matter to move the 
 stranger, who was tall and svelte. Very 
 tenderly and very carefully Arnout got her 
 in his arms. He had hoped to carry her, 
 with one of the countrymen, on their crossed 
 hands, but he soon saw that her foot was too 
 painful to allow of this. So he caught her 
 up boldly, and, with his blood tingling with 
 the effort and all his sinews crisped, strode 
 manfully down the road, calling to the boy to 
 follow with the bag and the wraps from the 
 carriage. And she, despite the agony she 
 was enduring, could yield herself with a dull 
 pleasure to the gentle strength upholding 
 her. All the first foolish admiration had 
 sunk to calm in the young fellow's breast, 
 lulled by the overwhelming impulse of pity 
 for suffering and the firm resolve to alleviate 
 it by every means in his power. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 
 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp and the Domine, 
 discussing the poor of the parish over their 
 tea in the verandah, saw this strange Httle 
 procession emerge out of the twiUght. 
 Stumbhng rapidly though awkwardly for- 
 ward, for the weight about his neck had 
 grown almost intolerably heavy, Arnout 
 came up the short garden-path. The little 
 boy ran after him, and banged the wooden 
 gate. Before Suzanna had had time to 
 realize her own amazement, she must face 
 the difficulty and act. Arnout fell past her 
 towards the sofa in the little sitting-room 
 beyond the verandah, and there deposited
 
 ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 5 I 
 
 his burden with a groan of relief. It might 
 have been almost an omen that he thus bent 
 beneath that burden so lightly taken to his 
 breast. The lady herself opened her eyes. 
 The room was almost dark, but she could 
 discern the female figure in the open 
 window. 
 
 " De grace," she said, *' your son is a 
 paragon ; and you, madame, I have the con- 
 viction, are a refuge of the distressed." And 
 then she fainted away for good and all. 
 
 '* No, thank you, Arnout," said Suzanna, as 
 soon as the Frenchwoman was deposited 
 on the bed in the spare-room. " I am 
 quite sure we do not want you any longer. 
 You have done quite enough, I am 
 sure." 
 
 " But, tante, I wanted to see if the 
 boot " 
 
 " Thank you. I shall see without your 
 
 'SS^^no^^y^^^
 
 52 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE 
 
 help. I believe I am still able to manage 
 a sprained ankle." 
 
 *' A broken foot ! " cried Arnout indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 "We shall soon know that. Most broken 
 feet turn out to be sprained ankles. Go 
 down and pour Jakob out another cup of tea." 
 
 "He will do that for himself, but you may 
 — want something I could get." 
 
 '' I want my temper," said Suzanna spite- 
 fully. " Go downstairs and see if I have 
 left it there." 
 
 When his aunt got into the satirical stage 
 Arnout always obeyed her. He knew that 
 it was the ante-chamber to the highly 
 indignant one, so he withdrew, with a last 
 look at the invalid, and Suzanna set herself 
 to examine the mischief done. 
 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp did not like 
 foreigners. She considered them super- 
 fluities. She loved them, of course, in a
 
 ON HOSPITABLE. THOUGHTS INTENT. 53 
 
 general sense, like all her neighbours and 
 her enemies, as by Scripture bound, but she 
 loved them from a distance. She saw no 
 necessity for their existence, though the 
 Almighty had willed it otherwise, and it 
 seemed to her that whenever she heard of 
 their doings, which was seldom, they were 
 doing something wrong. She read the 
 Provincial Gazette every evening from nine 
 till half-past, immediately after washing up 
 her tea-cups, but the only Impression made 
 upon her by its brief column of foreign 
 Intelligence (of which she forgot the contents 
 even while she read them) was this — that the 
 world would be peaceful without the French 
 and the Russians, and honest without the 
 Germans and the English ; and that, more- 
 over, the far places of the earth were full of 
 wickedness, murders and robberies and 
 treacheries unknown In the good village of 
 Wyk. Mejuffrouw Varelkamp considered It
 
 54 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 a special dispensation of Providence on her 
 behalf that she had not been born a foreigner. 
 And Mejuffrouw Varelkamp did not like 
 beauties, whether of home manufacture or 
 imported from abroad. For these also she 
 saw no necessity, and of these also was she 
 convinced that they did more harm than 
 good. She would have laughed at the 
 accusation, but it was true nevertheless. 
 Perhaps she would have admitted, after a 
 moment, that there was some truth in it. 
 She would have pointed — figuratively — to 
 Cleopatra's nose, for Pascal's saying that the 
 face of the world's history would have been 
 changed, had Cleopatra's nose been a little 
 different to what it was, had long been a 
 favourite with Suzanna. Not that she read 
 Pascal, but the quotation had tickled her 
 fancy, and stuck in her memory. She had 
 half a dozen such quotations, gathered pro- 
 miscuously, and therefore ready to hand.
 
 ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 55 
 
 " Chaque ame est soeur d'une ame," was 
 another. And she used to say, with a grim 
 smile, that her sister-soul must have ''died 
 still-born." 
 
 Well, and this saying about Cleopatra's 
 nose ? Wasn't it true, if you come to think 
 of it ? She wasn't a beauty, thank Heaven ! 
 And she had never pretended to be, like so 
 many other young women. Not but that a 
 girl might be glad of her good looks ; but 
 beauty as an article of commerce, a specula- 
 tion, a bait 
 
 No, decidedly, Suzanna preferred plain 
 features, especially in the close vicinity of her 
 foster-child. 
 
 And Mejuffrouw Varelkamp did not like 
 strangers, even when they were of her own 
 race and nation. She liked to know all 
 about you, and your father and mother, and 
 your great-uncles and great-aunts. She was 
 strong in genealogies, and the people with
 
 56 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 whose genealogy she was not acquainted 
 might be very good people, doubtless, but 
 there was no reason why she should trouble 
 her head about them. '' And Arphaxad 
 begat Salah ; and Salah begat Eber, and 
 unto Eber were born two sons." That 
 was her social religion. Holland is a small 
 country, and it is not difficult to be a zealous 
 devotee. On the contrary, it would have 
 been very difficult Indeed for Eber to beget 
 two sons without Miss Varelkamp knowing 
 all about the circumstance, and when they 
 were born, and whose nurse they had, and 
 what the doctor said. If nobody could 
 tell you who had begotten Barabbas. that 
 only proved to Miss Varelkamp that there 
 was no excuse for his being begotten at all. 
 Had she belonged to the '' upper ten 
 thousand " — let us say " upper two thousand " 
 for little Dutchdom — her knowledge would 
 have extended all over the country ; as It
 
 ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 57 
 
 was, it confined itself to her own highly 
 respectable provincial circle, outside which 
 was darkness and the chaos of the unknown. 
 
 '' I was thinking," said Arnout's voice in a 
 low, distinct w^hisper behind the door, '' that 
 I had perhaps better get the doctor, Tante 
 Suze." 
 
 At first she vouchsafed no answer but a 
 scornful sniff. Then suddenly it struck her 
 that he miorht take her silence for consent, 
 and she threw open the door. 
 
 Arnout stood on the narrow landing, under 
 the light of a flickering oil-lamp. His face 
 was troubled, and his whole attitude denoted 
 anxiety. 
 
 ** Yes," said his aunt ; '' go immediately 
 for four professors from Utrecht. One can 
 fill the shower-bath, and one can pull the 
 string, and the other two can hold you under 
 it. Good nieht, Arnout." And she flunpf- 
 to the door and locked it triumphantly.
 
 58 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 Had any one told Suzanna Varelkamp 
 that morning that a stranger, a foreigner, 
 a woman — of whom she knew neither the 
 country, the origin, nor the name — would pass 
 a night under her roof, in her guest-chamber, 
 she would have said that never, never would 
 she permit such a thing. Such stranger, if 
 alive, would be removed to the village inn 
 or the parsonage, and if she died on the 
 way — well, there was a dead-house at the 
 cemetery. 
 
 She busied herself now with the sufferer, 
 who revived after a few m.oments from her 
 faint. Suzanna was an excellent nurse — none 
 better — liorht-fineered and stronof-nerved. 
 She ascertained soon enough that the injury 
 to the foot was a sprain of some importance, 
 and she got arnica from her room close by, 
 with a smile of satisfaction at the disappear- 
 ance of Arnout from the staircase, and deftly 
 bandaged the swollen part. Then, seeing
 
 ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT. 59 
 
 that the patient was weak with the pain 
 and excitement, and still almost unconscious, 
 she lighted the little oil night-light from her 
 own room, with its cracked shade of Abraham 
 sacrificing Isaac, and stole out of the chamber 
 and locked the door on the outside. 
 
 M
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PARSON JAKOB. 
 
 '' There Is no more tea," said Jakob, In a 
 melancholy voice — '' at least, none worth 
 drinking. You will have to do without, 
 Arnout, for your aunt has sent away the 
 peat-stove." 
 
 Arnout was In a hilarious mood. The 
 events of the evening had excited him. He 
 burst out into joyous laughter. '' You tea- 
 pot ! " he cried ; " your one Idea of happiness 
 is to be brimful and running over with tjie 
 exhilarating fluid. How many cups have 
 you had this evening already ? You are 
 an old woman, Jakob. I believe you think
 
 PARSON JAKOB. 6 I 
 
 heaven will be one eternal tea-fieht. It is 
 your religion." 
 
 " Tea-ism, in fact," said the clergyman, 
 with his quiet twinkle — he had the clearest 
 of grey eyes. " Don't try to be funny, 
 Arnout. I don't think you can manage even 
 as easy a thing as the religious joke. If I 
 have contracted the pernicious habit of tea- 
 imbibing, it is as a martyr in a righteous 
 cause. It is one of a clergyman's principal 
 duties to take tea. In the religious world 
 of to-day the tea-cup plays the part which 
 the bottle played in the political world a 
 hundred years ago. If, therefore, I appre- 
 ciate the tea-cup " 
 
 •' Oh, bother ! " interrupted Arnout. " Not 
 a bad bit of anatomy, eh ? " 
 
 '' Who ? Whaf ? " said Jakob. 
 
 "Jakob, you are insufferable. Of course 
 you didn't see her as T carried her upstairs. 
 The reverend ! The cleric ! "
 
 62 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 " Arnout, did I not warn you against 
 •attempting to be funny ? I certainly saw 
 the lady you carried in here, and I thought 
 she looked very ill, and also handsome. But 
 I'm not accustomed, nor are you, to express- 
 ing that latter fact in the phraseology of the 
 
 connoisseur, and Don't get angry. I've 
 
 only put one foot on the pulpit step, and 
 I'll take it off again as soon as you promise 
 to behave yourself. There, there ! Tell me 
 how it happened. I'm as curious to know 
 as you can be to tell." 
 
 So Arnout described the events of the 
 evening, unnecessarily deploring, with that 
 painful self-consciousness of youthful vanity 
 whi.ch ever either blames itself or boasts, that 
 he had omitted opportunities of shining in 
 the strange lady's opinion. Jakob sym- 
 pathised with him, and laughed at him, and 
 reproached him for his conceit, as was ever 
 this good-natured mentor's way. At the
 
 PARSON JAKOB. 63 
 
 bottom of his heart the minister admired 
 his young companion profoundly, but he was 
 resolved to retain that admiration as Ions: as 
 he could — so he said. He said it to Arnout, 
 turning off the earnestness of his meaning 
 by the flippancy of his expression — that also 
 was his wont. The good ladies of the 
 village sometimes complained to each other 
 that their minister was a would-be funny man 
 — a most objectionable thing in a minister. 
 '* He is not in earnest, my dear. You can- 
 not be 'funny' and in earnest." He was so 
 terribly in earnest, and so young and beard- 
 less, he could not but shrink from the in- 
 tensity of his own convictions, and often, 
 when his heart trembled with its earnestness, 
 his lips would quiver to a grin. He was 
 striving at this moment, with true anxiety, 
 to account for his friend's unnatural tone. 
 " Exit the monster, shrieking and snorting ! 
 Enter Knight Arnout, the deliverer ! " he 
 said.
 
 64 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 But the young student's mood had sobered 
 down. The sudden incident on the quiet 
 country road, trivial as it may seem to the 
 supercihous reader, had been an event full of 
 interest and excitement to the unsophisticated 
 lad who had ''seen life " only as it is lived in 
 Overstad. A carriage accident ! A foreign 
 lady in distress ! The shades of night, and 
 a Frenchwoman in his arms all the way home 
 through the scents of summer ! What more 
 would you have to turn his head ? Yet his 
 head was not turned ; a Dutchman's all-round 
 head takes a deal of turning. He had 
 recognised the stranger's beauty as a fact, 
 a very interesting and admirable fact, no 
 doubt, but he had noticed it as we flush with 
 pleasure at the sight of a beautiful vase. 
 The romance of the meeting stimulated him, 
 and he would have liked to have fallen in 
 love with the "rescued" fair one headlong 
 and at first sis^ht, as knowing that this was
 
 PARSON JAKOB. 65 
 
 the proper thing to do. It would have put 
 the finishing touch to the evening's adven- 
 ture. But the more he realised this, and 
 the more he tried to excite himself into it, the 
 more he felt that his head was getting 
 lamentably cool. Perhaps, had she been 
 well and sprightly, armed for the conquest 
 and eager to conquer — perhaps ; but now the 
 feeling of commiseration and the eagerness 
 to bestow succour had swelled upwards and 
 swamped every other consideration, and 
 Arnout was only hoping with warm-hearted 
 kindness that the stranger had not much pain 
 and would soon get well again. He hoped 
 this, heart and soul, and he was conscious of 
 a very passion of anxiety that the little house 
 should do all it could — and more, if necessary 
 — to afford her relief. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " he said, and there was such 
 a genial pity in his tone, that Jakob felt re- 
 assured, for men do not pity when they love. 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 Love ! Nonsense ! Nothing could prove 
 more plainly how unused we were to romance, 
 or anything like romance, in the quiet little 
 village of Wyk. The merest event at all out 
 of the common immediately gave rise to the 
 wildest speculation, even in the tranquil heart 
 of the parson. No wonder that Suzanna's 
 soul was troubled within her as she slowly 
 descended the stairs. No wonder that even 
 Arnout's careless manner failed to reassure 
 her. But she need hardly have sat up in 
 her bed for half the night, with her thoughts 
 intent on the forks and spoons, speculating 
 whether the Frenchwoman, whose distorted 
 ankle she herself had tended, was at this 
 moment drawing them out of their hiding- 
 place, or whether that creak in the pas- 
 
 Well, well, we are none of us consistent in 
 our passions. Great Heaven, what an awful 
 place would this world be, if we were !
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 
 
 Next morning the Widow Barsselius came to 
 see the stranger and hear all about it. And 
 she brought Dorothy with her, for Dorothy 
 had begged to come. 
 
 The Widow Barsselius occupied one of the 
 most delightful positions in the world. She 
 was the only wealthy member of her family. 
 Wealthy ! Well, you know, most things go 
 by comparison, and few are so distinctly 
 relative as the idea of wealth. Mevrouw 
 Barsselius lived in a substantial old house on 
 one of the silent Overstad canals, a house 
 with two windows on each side of the 
 '' stoep." She kept two maidservants, and
 
 68 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 a man for the knives and errands. And she 
 could have a fly from the stables as often 
 as she chose. Arnout Oostrum called her 
 " Tante Croesus." 
 
 She always knew everything about the 
 cottage at Wyk, though Wyk is a two hours' 
 drive from the town. She knew things as 
 soon as they happened — sometimes a little 
 sooner. And in the latter case she had 
 " always foreseen." The life of the good 
 Widow Barsselius was spent in an engrossing 
 and almost feverish interest in those matters 
 which in nowise concerned her. 
 
 So Suzanna, careful not to offend, had 
 despatched a hurried note with last night's 
 post, and the widow, having found it on her 
 breakfast- table, had sent her errand-man 
 round to the livery-stables instanter, and had 
 enjoyed an hour of pleasurable flurry before 
 she was stowed away in the close cab with 
 Dorothy, a pair of shawls, her fat Maltese
 
 FIRST APPEARA^XE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 69 
 
 '' Bijou," and a large bouquet of roses. 
 Mevrouw Barsselius always brought her sister 
 roses from her garden, to prove that you 
 could grow these things in the city far better 
 than amonor the fields. 
 
 o 
 
 Dorothy was staying with Mevrouw. Her 
 curiosity must have been considerable to 
 cause her to court that two hours' drive on 
 so lovely a summer morning. In any case, 
 she was gflad enous^h when it came to an end 
 at last. " Mark my words," said the Widow 
 Barsselius, as they stopped at the little 
 garden gate. She said it for the twentieth 
 time that morning, and for the millionth in 
 her unremarkable existence. " Mark my 
 words. It is the cheval de Troie which my 
 sister has fetched into her house." She 
 spelt it ''cheval de Troyes," and believed 
 that the expression contained an allusion to 
 some event of French history, she had not 
 the remotest idea which.
 
 /O AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 But you need not go thinking, all the 
 same, that the Widow Barsselius was a fool. 
 She was as ignorant — and as 'cute — as a 
 perfect education left the women of thirty 
 years ago. We have changed all that ; and 
 the ignorance — and the 'cuteness — are gone. 
 
 " Drive on to the village," she said, stand- 
 ing — a portly figure — with Bijou in one 
 hand, and the roses in the other, '* and be 
 back by three exactly. You can have some 
 bread-and-cheese at the inn, and coffee ; but 
 no beer, and no gin. I'm not going to be 
 dropped into the canal on my way home, to 
 please anybody's drunken habits. You are 
 a drunkard, probably, and I pity your wife 
 and fourteen children. I would give you 
 ' Jan Janssen's Ruin ' if I thought it would 
 do you any good. But you look past help." 
 
 The man grinned, and touched his hat. 
 He had heard this little speech before. It 
 was true that he drank. As for the fourteen
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 7 1 
 
 children, Mevrouw Barsselius knew nothine 
 about them. It was an ancient joke with 
 her, which had long ago deepened into an 
 article of belief, that every drunkard had an 
 enormous family. And she would have con- 
 sidered the number " twelve " an indecency, 
 because of its allusion to the patriarchs. 
 
 " Suzanna," she said, as she proceeded up 
 the narrow path, " I have brought you 
 some roses. They have suffered a good 
 deal on the w^ay, but I thought you might 
 care to see what my roses are like." 
 
 Mevrouw Barsselius was stout and warm. 
 She did not mind the former, and she enjoyed 
 the latter. She lived in continual terror of 
 an imaginary draught. * 
 
 *' And where," she asked, '' is your French- 
 woman ? Shut the door, x-\rnout, and leave 
 Bijou alone." 
 
 " Upstairs in her room " began Arnout. 
 
 " In my guest-chamber," interrupted Miss
 
 72 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 Varelkamp tartly ; " where she is likely 
 to remain for the next six weeks." 
 
 Mevrouw Barsselius cast an amused 
 look at her elder sister out of her canny 
 little eyes. The exasperation of Suzanna's 
 tone delighted her. And she pitied the 
 poor old lady a little as well. But she 
 enjoyed teasing above all things in the 
 world — except scandal. 
 
 " Tell me all about it, Arnout," she said, 
 as she settled herself comfortably in her own 
 especial easy-chair. She had given it to 
 Suzanna for that very purpose fourteen 
 years ago. " Begin at the beginning, and 
 tell me exactly what you said and what she 
 said, and what you did and what she did. 
 Of course I know that you now think you 
 should have said and done differently. 
 Never mind. Tell me all about it. A 
 Frenchwoman upset between Heelsum and 
 Wyk! It is delightful!"
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 73 
 
 So Arnout, very red in the face and furious 
 at his own foolish embarrassment, had to 
 tell the whole stupid story over again, with 
 Dorothy's grave eyes fixed tranquilly on his. 
 How tiresome these old w^omen were, and 
 how small the room looked ! Good heavens ! 
 was it possible that so simple an occurrence 
 could be construed into an event of gossipy 
 interest ? 
 
 " And then," he went on savagely, '* I 
 took her up in my arms as tenderly as I 
 could " 
 
 Suzanna, as if hearing of the fact for the 
 first time, gave an involuntary start. 
 
 " Don't interrupt, Suze," cried Mevrouw 
 Barsselius ; clutching her sleepy lapdog, her 
 face beaming with enjoyment. " Let the 
 boy alone. ' And so I took her up,' Arnout, 
 * with a touch of ineffable tenderness.' Go 
 on." 
 
 Arnout would have liked to lay hold of
 
 74 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 his aunt with a touch that was far from 
 tender. *' How vulgar she is," he thought, 
 and he stole a glance at Dorothy. Dorothy 
 was looking calmly at him. She said nothing, 
 but there was an amused twinkle In her eyes. 
 Wretch ! 
 
 All the same, he felt that he was very fond 
 of Dorothy, and he wished they would not 
 make a fool of him in her presence. 
 
 " The entr'acte," remarked his aunt Bars- 
 selius enigmatically, when he had told all she 
 cared to extract from him. *' I reserve my 
 seat for the rest of the performance. And 
 now, show me the heroine ! " 
 
 '' Madame de Mongelas is upstairs, Anne- 
 marie," said Suze severely. *' I have told 
 you so before. I have consented to her 
 remaining in the house as long as she Is 
 confined to her — couch. As soon as she Is 
 able to be moved, she will be carried to the 
 hotel in the village."
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 
 
 /D 
 
 " I see," said Mevrouw Barsselius. " What 
 did you say her name was ? " 
 
 Arnout took up a card from the httle side- 
 table, where the town roses were doing their 
 best to revive by the aid of a tumbletful 
 of water and a thimbleful of country air, 
 Mevrouw Barsselius having ordered the 
 windows to be closed. It was a tiny card, 
 neat and unpretending. He held it towards 
 his aunt. " Vicomtesse de Mongelas." 
 
 " Phew ! " said the fat lady, with a most 
 unmistakable whistle. *' Vicomtesse ! The 
 princess out of the fairy tale ! Dorothy must 
 see her immediately. Fetch her down." 
 
 " Annemarie, I have told you already " 
 
 Somebody knocked at the door at this 
 juncture. They all started, and Mevrouw 
 gave a little scream. It was as if the 
 mysterious stranger stood at the door — the 
 interesting, the alarming stranger. And the 
 simple souls were fluttered by the thought.
 
 76 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 It was only Jakob te Bakel, come to 
 inquire after the patient. 
 
 Mevrouw Barsselius did not like parsons 
 as a rule, and pious parsons least of all. 
 
 *' Oho, Domine ! " she cried with a sounding 
 slap of her fat hand on her favourite s silken 
 back, " you here already to make kind 
 inquiries ! No need to demand now if the 
 lady is good-looking. Trust you saints to 
 find out the prettiest sinners. But, mind 
 you, the little papist is no sheep of your fold. 
 Hands off, till we send for the village priest." 
 
 " Do you really believe, sister," said 
 Suzanna in an awestruck tone, '' that the 
 person upstairs will prove to be an idolatrous 
 child of Rome ? " 
 
 Mevrouw Barsselius burst out laughing, and 
 Dorothy remarked sententiously, that all 
 French people were Roman Catholics. 
 
 '' Except the Huguenot pastors who come 
 here to collect," said Jakob, as he limped to
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF TANTE CRCESUS. "]"] 
 
 a chair. *' We get about a couple of score 
 per annum, and I suppose they collect for 
 somebody." 
 
 " Hold your tongues," cried the rich widow, 
 with another slap. '' Let's have no more 
 talking, but show us the original." 
 
 '' She can't come downstairs," said Suzanna 
 decidedly. '' In fact she can't move, and as 
 you, Annemarie, have never mounted a stair- 
 case for the last seven years, at the very 
 least, you will have to go back without seeing 
 her to-day, that's certain." 
 
 Suzanna did not often contradict her 
 younger sister so flatly. She was a little bit 
 afraid of her as a rule, or rather, she could 
 never quite shake off the imposing impression 
 which Annemarie had made upon her ever 
 since they were children together. Anne- 
 marie had been the favourite with their 
 parents — and with everybody ; had been the 
 prettier, brighter, pleasanter child. And
 
 78 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 Suzanna had always been taught to consider 
 Annemarie's comfort and to obey her behests. 
 Of course Annemarle had made a " desirable " 
 settlement — she was born to do so ; and 
 ever since, all through her velvety childless 
 wife- and widowhood, the thinner, sourer 
 sister's admiration had only found fresh 
 abundance to feed upon. At times a doubt 
 of Annemarie's superiority would cross her 
 mind, but she always suppressed it as a sin. 
 Besides, was not the widow affluent, amiable, 
 good-tempered ? Suzanna did not covet her 
 riches, but she could not help experiencing 
 their charm. To her whole existence of 
 hand-to-mouth struggle, of daily renunciation, 
 it was a wonderful, a beautiful thing to be 
 able to do, pecuniarily, whatever one liked. 
 It was a force which it were wrong, as well 
 as foolish, to ignore. There was nothing 
 mean or money-loving in the awe with which 
 she spoke of her sister's unlimited power of
 
 FIRST APPEARANXE OF TANTE CRCESUS. 79 
 
 ordering cabs, as she trudged to the village 
 church in the rain. But the money, what- 
 ever hold it might have on her imagination, 
 left her moral sense untouched. And when- 
 ever that came into conflict with Annemarie's 
 opinions — which was frequently — and she 
 felt certain, into the bargain, that Annemarie 
 was wrong — which was by no means so 
 commonly — she stood up and said her say 
 to her sister without fear and without 
 reproach. 
 
 " You won't see the Frenchwoman to- 
 day," she repeated, '' unless you go up and 
 have a look at her in her room." 
 
 Now the Widow Barsselius had just the 
 faintest touch of asthma, a pleasant weakness, 
 for it absolutely precluded her from mounting 
 more than six steps at a time — six steps, 
 just the number of her own " stoep " ; that 
 was a very considerate arrangement of the 
 powers that ruled her destiny ! Therefore
 
 8o AX OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 she was very gentle to her ailment, and 
 nurtured it tenderly. 
 
 She slapped her hand down so violently 
 at this stage of the proceedings, that the 
 little wretch beneath it set up a yell of 
 protest. Upon which she caught him to her 
 ample bosom and covered him with kisses, 
 angrily ordering Dorothy not to laugh. 
 
 "Do you think," she cried, *' that I have 
 come all the way from Overstad and paid 
 six florins and the turnpikes and the man's 
 food and fifty cents pour-boire, and that I'm 
 going to have nothing in return for all my 
 expenditure ? The same way the woman 
 went up she can come down. And I don't 
 leave this house till I've found out all about 
 her, and whether she's a fit person to be left 
 alone with a pack of children like you ! " 
 
 She w^as burning with curiosity to see a 
 live viscountess. And it was her invariable 
 habit to treat her elder sister like a poor,
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF TAXTE CRCESUS. 8 1 
 
 ignorant infant, and her nephew Hke an over- 
 grown boy. '' Suzanna," she would remark 
 to her cronies, '' has no knowledge of the 
 world's realities. She has not sense enough 
 to be anything except an old maid. And 
 she is the dearest old maid in existence." 
 
 '' And now," she said to Arnout, '' if the 
 woman is lying on her couch, as your aunt 
 Suzanna tells us, go upstairs and fetch her 
 down this moment, in the samie way as you 
 carried her up.'' 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 
 
 "He shall not do it," said Suzanna, before 
 Arnout could make up his mind. " Sister, 
 where is your sense of delicacy ? I am 
 ashamed of you. Are these city manners ? " 
 
 The last words, an echo of many former 
 combats, were unnecessary and unwise. 
 
 *' City manners ! " echoed Mevrouw, 
 bristling up and unseating Bijou altogether ; 
 ** and what else do you think the lady upstairs 
 — always supposing her to be a lady — has 
 been accustomed to ? Do you think she has 
 been asleep In a village all her life, with 
 a lot of Dutch boors ? She will be glad
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 8 
 
 O 
 
 enough to meet a reasonable woman, and 
 I insist upon her being given the chance ! " 
 
 This tone always silenced Suzanna effectu- 
 ally, but it silenced her with the resolve to 
 hold out. Men speak of the dangers of 
 attack from a woman's tongue. They are 
 great, undoubtedly. But it is not till she 
 retreats within the stronghold of her dumb- 
 ness that her power becomes terrible indeed. 
 And Suzanna was a match for her sister 
 Barsselius. 
 
 " I forbid Arnout to go," she said quietly. 
 
 "Oh, of course,'' cried the widow, ''and 
 send for the younker's nurse, and scold her 
 for forgetting to put the cotton wool in his 
 ears ! And don't let the dear child go out 
 walking, for fear it should see the cows." 
 
 ** Annemarie, you are indecent," cried 
 Suzanna — a pale flush over her pinched face. 
 '* I am sure that every person of feeling would 
 agree with me."
 
 84 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 '' The Domlne does ! " interrupted the 
 widow. '' Don't you, Domine ? You clergy- 
 have the secret of the improper ! You culti- 
 vate its different shades, like a gardener his 
 roses. Explain about it to Dorothy, do ! " 
 
 "Thank you, Mevrouw," cried Dorothy 
 with some spirit. " I am quite able to dis- 
 tinguish for myself." 
 
 " Hoity-toity ! In my time girls were not 
 so eager to own to their knowledge of both 
 sides of the question. Then you, Mejuffer, 
 have the good sense to bid dear Arnout obey 
 me, in your own interest, as well as in his." 
 
 *' I certainly consider," remarked Jakob 
 gravely, " if my opinion be asked, that this 
 conversation is both unseemly and unprofit- 
 able. Miss Suzanna's invalid guest has a 
 double claim to the first privilege of hospi- 
 tality — repose." 
 
 " But your opinion is not asked, right 
 reverend sir," cries the Widow Barsselius with
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 85 
 
 the inconsequence of anger, " nor do I care 
 for it or for anybody else's. I have an 
 opinion of my own, thank Heaven, and 
 power to enforce it. And Arnout, who is 
 dying for another meeting with the charmer, 
 goes upstairs to her this moment in spite of 
 Miss Varelkamp's anxiety to spoil the sport." 
 
 Suzanna placed herself in front of the door. 
 *' He shall not go," she said. " He shall 
 not take that woman in his arms again — 
 unnecessarily — with me and Dorothy to look 
 on." 
 
 '' And I say he shall," stamped the widow, 
 " or I don't come to this house again in a 
 twelvemonth, and I alter my will to-night. 
 Mind that, Arnout — and you, Dorothy ! " 
 
 All this storm in a tea-cup had raged round 
 young Oostrum, standing white and silent, 
 with a rising fury in his breast. What were 
 these women — ay, what even was his aunt 
 Suzanna ? — to discuss his young heart between
 
 86 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 them and to analyse its rights and wrongs ? 
 What was Jakob to '' give his opinion " on 
 so sacred a subject ! Oh, the shame of it, 
 the indecency, the insult — with that innocent 
 girl standing by ! He recoiled equally from 
 the one old woman's purity — prudity — and 
 from the other old w^oman's vulgar innuendos. 
 And why should he not, if so he chose, or 
 if so it were convenient, take any human 
 creature in his arms and carry her to the end 
 of the world ? And how should one woman 
 dare to grin, if he did so, or the other dare, 
 w^orse still, to blush ? His soul was very 
 wroth within him, not so much for his own 
 sake, perhaps, as for Dorothy's. He felt as 
 if the girl were being struck in his presence, 
 and his rash young spirit sprang forward to 
 defend her. 
 
 " I can judge for myself what is fitting," he 
 said hotly ; '' nor is there anything proper or 
 improper in the whole matter, Aunt Anne-
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. Sj 
 
 marie. If the lady asks me to help her 
 downstairs, I can do so, but I shall certainly 
 wait till she asks." 
 
 "Child," replied the widow with a grin, 
 " don't be impertinent — at least, not to me. 
 Your aunt Suzanna must look out for herself; 
 but for your own sake and Dorothy's you 
 must be amiable to me." 
 
 " And I refuse," continued Arnout still 
 more hotly, "to allow you to couple Miss 
 van Donselaar's name in this manner with 
 mine. What business have you to drag her 
 into the discussion at all ? What business 
 have you to assume that she is interested in 
 my future, or that she asks for a share in 
 your money ! Keep your money, and, when 
 
 you are dead " 
 
 " Arnout ! " cried Suzanna, not without a 
 certain glow of satisfaction. 
 
 " Hold your tongue and let the boy speak," 
 flared up the widow. '' He is as angry with
 
 88 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 you as with me, I can tell you, Suze. Well, 
 insolence, what next ? " 
 
 Arnold had started up and was pacing the 
 room with rapid strides. He stopped — at as 
 great a distance from them all as the limited 
 space would allow. '* I have no intention of 
 being rude to anybody," he said deliberately, 
 *' but I cannot help considering such con- 
 versation as that of this morning an insult 
 to Miss van Donselaar. Never mind the 
 Frenchwoman, but you have no right. Aunt 
 Annemarie, to suppose any connection be- 
 tween me and any young lady, least of all in 
 that young lady's presence. You have done 
 so repeatedly lately ; you have done so again 
 to-day. And you place me under the painful 
 obligation " 
 
 '' You are making speeches, Arnold," inter- 
 rupted the fat widow hastily, " and they are 
 rather tiresome. Leave off, and fetch the 
 pretty papist down."
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 89 
 
 " I am not making a speech," said Arnout, 
 still quietly. "And at any rate, this is the 
 peroration. Miss Donselaar — " and then 
 there came a faint tremble into his voice — 
 *' I am going to ask you to be my wife. I 
 don't expect you," he went on hurriedly, " to 
 answer me. I know I have as yet no right 
 to speak to you on the subject." At this 
 juncture Bijou got mixed up between the 
 young fellow's legs. He kicked the dog 
 fiercely aside, and as that injured animal fled 
 howling to its mistress, he poured forth his 
 words with the greater rapidity. A bell rang 
 upstairs ; but nobody heeded that. 
 
 '* Hush ! Don't say anything. Let me 
 speak. You will give me the answer when 
 you think fit, or — or — your father. Only 
 you hear that I have asked you, and you 
 hear, Tante Suze, and you, Tante Annemarie. 
 And you, Jakob, you hear also, mind you, 
 after listening to my aunt all the morning.
 
 90 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 And now, If afterwards, when I am ready 
 and old enough to support you, we do not 
 marry. Aunt BarsseHus will know, and Jakob 
 will know, and everybody, that it was not I 
 who refused the match, but Miss — but you, 
 Dorothy. I have done my speech, thank 
 you, Aunt Barsselius, and I'm awfully sorry 
 you obliged me to make it — Good heavens ! 
 I don't mean that," continued the young 
 fellow in great distress. " I mean, Dorothy, 
 I'm so sorry you had to listen to it just now. 
 And I'm quite sure I love you, and so I 
 have a right to ask you, only I never should 
 have done it if it hadn't been for my aunts, 
 and Jakob." 
 
 Once more the upstairs bell pealed 
 through the silence of the little house. 
 
 "Thank you, Nout," said Dorothy, almost 
 inaudibly. But he caught the words, and 
 the familiar abbreviation — the pet name, 
 suddenly drawn up out of the oblivion of
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. QI 
 
 their childhood — told him more than her 
 downcast eyes had dared express. That is 
 to say, it told him that she was grateful to 
 him for his delicacy of feeling, and that she 
 understood his motive and appreciated it. 
 And he wondered whether, some day 
 perhaps, she would accept him. And he 
 thought how sweet and Q^ood she looked 
 with that bar of lio^ht from the half-closed 
 sun-blinds across her braided hair. 
 
 Then nobody spoke for a moment. And 
 then the young minister rose up in his corner 
 and limped forward towards his friend and 
 silently shook his hand. 
 
 ''All this is very pretty and very 
 romantic," said the rich widow's shrill cackle, 
 ** and we shall see what Dorothea's father 
 says. And you remind me of Don Quixote, 
 Arnout, and I dare say I should not have 
 objected. But you deliberately kicked Bijou, 
 which shows you are a far greater brute than
 
 92 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 you imagine. And that I shall never for- 
 give you ! Mark my words. I shall never 
 forgive you that. Now, bring down the 
 Frenchvvoman. That was an interesting 
 little scene ; but it has lasted quite long 
 enough. And what does Dorothea intend 
 to answer ? " 
 
 " Miss Donselaar," burst in Arnout, " will 
 not answ^er anything till she thinks fit to do 
 so. In no case will she answ^er to-day." 
 
 *' Tush ! " cried the old woman, veering 
 round with the rapidity of obstinacy. " Come, 
 Dolly, the boy is not a bad boy, though he 
 shall never have a penny from me ; and, 
 besides, I intend to live to be a hundred. 
 Now, what do you say ?" 
 
 " Peace, Annemarie," spoke Miss Varel- 
 kamp imperiously. '' We have done mischief 
 enough for to-day." 
 
 Before Mevrouw Barsselius could retort, 
 the door was thrown open by Mejuffrouw
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 93 
 
 Varelkamp's Betje, who burst into the room 
 in immediate explanation of her own un- 
 
 ' itakable knock. For that was Betje's 
 ' ly of demanding admittance. 
 
 Her expression was discontented, and her 
 whole manner betokened a grievance. The 
 grievance, by-the-bye, was Madame de 
 Moneelas. 
 
 ''She's ringing, and she's calling," began 
 the aggrieved damsel, without any formal 
 introduction, "and Heaven only knows what 
 gibberish she's talking. And I ask you 
 what's the use of speaking a language that 
 nobody can understand ? " 
 
 Betje regarded the company triumphantly, 
 her arms akimbo. She evidently considered 
 she had propounded a poser. 
 
 "Shut the door, Betje," said Suzanna 
 angrily, "and leave the room." 
 
 " I can't do that, Mejuffrouw, begging 
 your pardon," retorted Betje, unabashed,
 
 94 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 '' leastways not as long as I've a mortal frame. 
 I must obey my masters, as the Bible says, 
 and nobody more willing, but not conun- 
 drums, — no. And, if I shut the door, you 
 won't hear her calling, and that's what she 
 told me on purpose to open it for." 
 
 Indeed, even while the handmaid was 
 holding forth, a voice could be heard calling 
 from upstairs — a silvery voice that rang out 
 like a peal of bells. *' But mount, then, 
 monsieur," it said ; '' you are too cruel. 
 Mount, then, and bring me down to share 
 your circle. I kill myself here with ennui." 
 
 A look of defiance, of amusement, of 
 triumph — injured innocence virtuously vic- 
 torious — flashed into Arnout's eyes. He 
 bounded past his aunts without a word ; he 
 rushed up the stairs, four steps at a time, and 
 he was down among them again in another 
 moment, carrying in his arms a wonderful 
 little mass of pink muslin and lace, from
 
 WHO COOKS A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH. 95 
 
 which the same laughing voice came forth 
 in ripples. '' But, be careful then. Oh, you 
 are careful, only I am so foolish. I am 
 frightened, beyond all things, of doing myself 
 injury. Thank you, you are so kind. I 
 am ungrateful. Ah, it does one good to be 
 here." 
 
 She lay back on the hard, old-fashioned 
 sofa on which he had placed her ; she lay 
 back with her beautiful head half hidden by 
 the lace of her " matinee." Dorothy's clear 
 grey eyes looked into hers, and she smiled 
 back upon them. '' I heard you laughing 
 and talking down here," she said, ''and I was 
 dying to join you. My leg will hurt less, if 
 you will talk to me. You must introduce me 
 to these ladies, madame." 
 
 *' I knew I should have my way," said 
 Mevrouw Barsselius.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. 
 
 '' Is dinner to be kept hot for the Juffrouw, 
 Mynheer ? " said Piet, as he removed the 
 soup. 
 
 " You are new to your place," repHed 
 Mynheer van Donselaar, " or you would not 
 have asked the question." And Mynheer 
 van Donselaar rubbed his thin hands to- 
 gether and smiled a self-satisfied smile. 
 Karel and Koos, the two sons of the house, 
 looked across at each other and smiled 
 furtively also. 
 
 Had the king himself been staying at 
 Steenevest, he would either have partaken 
 of dinner at five o'clock precisely or not have
 
 PUNXTUALITV AND THE PARAGON. 97 
 
 partaken of it at all. For punctuality was 
 Mynheer van Donselaar's " whole duty of 
 man." In the days when he was making his 
 money — and every penny of it had been 
 made by himself, as a coffee-merchant on the 
 Amsterdam Exchange — this precision had 
 been the means to an end, but now that the 
 end was obtained, the means had remained 
 and become object in their turn. Having 
 nothing more to do with his time, Mynheer 
 van Donselaar constituted himself an absolute 
 slave of the clock, and filled up his too 
 plentiful spare moments by that painfully 
 accurate attention to the exact stage of the 
 hour which is only to be found in very 
 idle persons. It is those who do nothing 
 who are usually most anxious to know exactly 
 how late they are doing it. 
 
 Baffled by his clocks, and lacking the 
 patience of a Charles the Fifth, Mynheer 
 had had a sundial constructed on his premises 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 q8 an old maid's love. 
 
 with the utmost attainable accuracy. But he 
 had forgotten one thing — that the sun only 
 rarely shines In Holland, where three hundred 
 of the three hundred and sixty-five days of 
 the year are wet, and that a sundial there- 
 fore is as practically useless in that country 
 as a bicycle In the desert. At long intervals 
 he obtained an opportunity of verifying his 
 computations, and It was a strange sight to 
 see his lank figure come rushing out of the 
 house, chronometer in hand, as soon as a ray 
 of watery sunlight crept forth between the 
 clouds. He would sit by the window for 
 hours together, and his face would grow 
 longer, and his temper shorter, through the 
 steady downpour of a Dutch summer. Poor 
 man ! He had counted the sundial among 
 his possessions for several years, and he was 
 still striving to reckon out to a second Its 
 divergences from railway-time and from his 
 watch. The worst of it all was that, in 
 
 J
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. 99 
 
 default of the sundial, the whole household 
 had to regulate itself by Mynheer van 
 Donselaar's watch, and that this authority 
 itself was by no means beyond little irregu- 
 larities. With that obstinacy which only a 
 fine full-grown hobby can develop, Mynheer 
 van Donselaar refused to part with the old- 
 fashioned time-keeper which his father had 
 given him some forty years ago. He wound 
 it up every evening at half-past ten precisely, 
 and he believed in it all through the day. 
 He believed in it, and throughout its conflicts 
 with the dial he had a sneaking desire to 
 take its part. One of his chief reasons for 
 constructing the latter machine had been his 
 anxiety to prove his old watch infallible ; and 
 now, when the two fell out, he would shake 
 his head at the new-comer with half-regretful 
 reproach. He was not quite so certain, 
 after all, that his father's watch did not 
 know best.
 
 lOO AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 " Why not tell us exactly how late it Is, 
 instead of always telling us it is too late," 
 grumbled Karel, the elder son. But he 
 grumbled sotto voce, and he did not permit 
 himself even such limited opposition before 
 he came to man's estate. Mynheer van 
 Donselaar was not accustomed to any opposi- 
 tion from anybody. He had been a paragon 
 all his life, and he had taken care that on 
 this subject, as well as on all others, every 
 one who came into contact with him should 
 know and should share his opinion. When 
 his father died suddenly and left the affairs 
 of " Donselaar & Sons, coffee-brokers," in 
 sad confusion, young twenty-year-old Diederik 
 at once took the management of matters into 
 his own hands, sending his incapable elder 
 brother about his business, which had never 
 by any means been the firm's. He supported 
 his mother and his seven sisters with relent- 
 less propriety, making the old woman's life
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. lOI 
 
 a burden to her by his tacit air of injured 
 innocence, and marrying out all her daughters 
 without any consideration of their personal 
 predilections. By the time he was thirty- 
 five the whole thinor was over. The mother 
 had found rest by the side of her bankrupt 
 husband, beyond the reach of her respectable 
 son's reproachful honesty ; the daughters 
 had settled down in their families as best 
 they could, most of them fairly contented 
 with the eligible consorts their worthy brother 
 had procured for them, and glad, in any case, 
 to be out of the way of that relative's bene- 
 factions. And then the model son became 
 a model husband. He offered his hand to 
 a timid little cousin who had been the 
 admiring spectator of his virtue since her 
 childhood ; and she, too frightened to refuse 
 him, accepted, and never quite recovered 
 from her fright. She obeyed him with heart 
 and soul and body ; and, when she could no
 
 ]02 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 longer continue so arduous a task, she did 
 what she knew to be her duty — she died. 
 She thought everything admirable that he 
 said and did. I believe she would have 
 loved him, vv^ere it not that love casteth out 
 fear. She could never get as high as that. 
 But when he once told her — late in life — that 
 his heart had been another's, she admired 
 him for the confession. She felt that if he 
 had not married earlier, it was for the sake 
 of those at home. In fact, he was virtue 
 personified, virtue in its most satisfactory 
 form of perfect self-righteousness. He had 
 never done a wrong thing, or, worse still. 
 a foolish one. And, therefore, in the prime 
 of his life he was able to buy a smart little 
 estate in the country, and to retire thither 
 with his daughter Dorothy and his two sons. 
 He had put the two sons into his own 
 business, without stopping to inquire whether 
 they cared for it. They went to and fro,
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. IO3 
 
 and their father used them as his machines. 
 God was well pleased with him ; the world 
 was well pleased with him ; he was well 
 pleased with himself. And he knew what 
 o'clock it was. 
 
 Why not, indeed, hang up a responsible 
 time-piece in the hall and have done with it ? 
 That would have simplified matters beyond 
 endurance, and, besides, the hall clock — for of 
 course there was a hall clock — had allowed 
 itself too inexcusable liberties in the very 
 face of Mynheer van Donselaar's chronometer 
 to enable him to confer upon it any official 
 authority. In one word. Mynheer van 
 Donselaar knew what o'clock it was, and 
 everybody else in the household must find 
 out as best he could what o'clock Mynheer 
 van Donselaar knew it to be. 
 
 He had plenty more fusses and fancies, 
 had Dorothy's father. Some of them are 
 hardly worth mentioning ; some of them the
 
 I04 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 patient reader will find out for himself. His 
 articles on the culture of roses, are they not 
 written in '' The Netherlands Gardener ; " 
 and was it not he who worked out in three 
 letters to the Utrecht Cotu^ant that marvellous 
 system of poor relief in Java which would 
 have resulted in every Javanese doing his 
 duty — and paying his duty — to the glory of 
 the Dutch fatherland and the enrichment 
 of the coffee-brokers ? He had the letters 
 framed and glazed, solidly framed, and they 
 hung in his " study," where he sat, watch in 
 hand, among his reports of the Chamber of 
 Commerce and files of the Commercial 
 Gazette, waiting for the sun to creep out 
 across the dial. 
 
 Dorothy had been staying, as we have 
 seen, with the Widow Barsselius. She was 
 to have returned by the 4.45, and the 4.45 
 had not brought her. Enough, in itself, to 
 disturb the equanimity of her father, even if
 
 PUNXTUALTTY AND THE PARAGON. TO5 
 
 that gentleman had not walked to the little 
 tram-station, an eighth of a mile, to wel- 
 come her. Not that Mynheer van Donselaar 
 especially cared for his only daughter. What 
 heart he had, and he had a sort of heart — 
 nonsense, we all have, even the paragons — 
 what heart he had was given up to his eldest 
 son, Karel, the *' tree-bearer " as we say in 
 Holland, a young fellow of one and twenty, 
 and most like his father in face and form. 
 " But I never let him do as he likes," said 
 Mynheer van Donselaar. "It is the curse of 
 our age, that the young people are allowed 
 to do as they like ! " 
 
 Allowed to do as they liked ! Well, 
 perhaps Mynheer van Donselaar was right. 
 Certainly it cannot be denied that the relation 
 between fathers and their grown-up sons is 
 nowadays chiefly a question of allowance. 
 To Karel Donselaar his father was the 
 principal of the firm, and in so far, if no
 
 lO'-) AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 further, that principal was to him a matter of 
 interest. 
 
 Good heavens ! is this serious chronicle 
 dropping into punning ? Are we to lose 
 our "local colour" by attempts at a joke? 
 Mynheer van Donselaar had never in all his 
 life come into collision with wit or humour 
 in any form. They were not respectable, 
 and to be avoided, like other light things — 
 light women, for instance, and light trousers 
 and light wines. A good joke would have 
 ruined a stronger man even than Myn- 
 heer van Donselaar on the " Bourse " at 
 Amsterdam, for "joker" is one of the 
 cruellest epithets a solemn Dutchman can 
 bestow. 
 
 Karel Donselaar sat at his father's solid 
 dinner-table and scowled across at Koos. 
 There was not much love lost between the 
 brothers. You could not bring any positive 
 charge a^^ainst Koos, but he was not as
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. IO7 
 
 absolutely reliable as the other gentlemen of 
 the family. He was conscious of vague 
 yearnings after the vanities of the city, and 
 although his father took care they should 
 remain unsatisfied, yet there was something 
 discreditable in the fact of a young merchant 
 hankering after the theatre and the concert- 
 room. Koos was musical, and — like Arnout 
 Oostrum — he loved his violin. There was 
 no harm in playing the fiddle, but there was 
 harm in playing it so well. " The man who 
 turns his play into work," said Mynheer van 
 Donselaar, "will very soon turn his work 
 into play." 
 
 Koos was only eighteen, poor fellow ! a 
 year younger than Dorothy; he would out- 
 grow his little failings in time. His health 
 was not strong, and he had a gentle look in 
 his pale-blue eyes which had belonged to his 
 mother before him, and which was very 
 much out of place in that grim old warehouse
 
 TOS AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 on the " Canal of the Roses." They ca'l 
 their canals after roses and lilies in Amster- 
 dam, as the Greeks spoke timidly of the 
 Euxine Sea. 
 
 Need it be added that Dorothy adored 
 her younger brother, squandering on him all 
 the tenderness which she could not get rid of 
 to any one else ? Tenderness was not a 
 marketable article at Steenevest. 
 
 " I wonder," said Koos, " whether any- 
 thing has happened to Dorothy." 
 
 " Happened ! " remarked Karel. " What 
 should happen ? Old Mother Barsselius has 
 missed the train. If I betted — which I 
 don't — I would lay you a rix- thaler that they 
 turned up at the station in time to see it 
 go off" 
 
 "If I betted — which I don't," was a 
 favourite expression with Karel van Donse- 
 laar. It was the next best thing to a wager, 
 and it had the advantage at the same time
 
 PUNXTUALITY AND THE PARAGON. lOQ 
 
 of clearly enunciating the speaker's repug- 
 nance to all hazardous ventures. It may 
 seem that the expression itself sounded 
 ** horsey." Ah well, we must all be young 
 in our day, even Amsterdam coffee-brokers, 
 and the phrase was Karel Donselaar's one 
 public attempt at dissipation. 
 
 '' I regret that your sister should be 
 exposed to so evil an example," said the old 
 gentleman. " Mevrouw Barsselius is an 
 excellent woman — undoubtedly excellent — 
 but, like most of her sex, she has yet to learn 
 the value of time." 
 
 " Dorothy will have enjoyed the change," 
 said Koos. His voice lingered over the 
 word " enjoyed." 
 
 " Your sister alone is to blame," answered 
 the father. " It should be impossible for 
 Mevrouw Barsselius to arrive too late, where 
 Dorothy knew we were expecting her." 
 
 *' But it takes a o-ood deal to influence the
 
 no AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 old lady," pleaded Koos ; " in fact, you know 
 she always does exacdy what she likes, 
 father. She is the only person in the world 
 who bullies Juffrouw Varelkamp." 
 
 " And even she wouldn't bully that old 
 witch, if it weren't for her dollars," sneered 
 Karel. 
 
 Mynheer van Donselaar drummed his 
 fingers sharply on the table. He did not 
 approve of the expression. Had it been 
 Koos who used it, he would have told 
 him so. 
 
 Koos was staring dreamily at Dorothy's 
 vacant place. How tiresome the old-fashioned 
 room looked with its green curtains and 
 heavy mahogany furniture ! How dull the 
 solid dinner was ! He wondered to himself, 
 for the hundredth time, whether Karel really 
 liked them. The wine was good, certainly [ 
 but Koos did not care for wine. 
 
 Karel did, he believed. However, Mynheer
 
 PU^XTUALITV AND THE PARAGON. 1 I I 
 
 van Donselaar only allowed two glasses, and 
 these he poured out himself. 
 
 Life at Steenevest was only bearable, 
 thought Koos, when Dorothy was at home. 
 Fortunately, her departures were few and of 
 brief duration ; fortunately for him, and for 
 her also, the persons whom she visited were 
 not possessed of very overpowering attrac- 
 tions. She was often almost glad to get 
 back. 
 
 " I wish she were home," said Koos. 
 
 ''So do I," assented Karel. "We shall 
 hear all about the Frenchwoman as soon as 
 she turns up. That woman has been staying 
 at the Varelkamps for little less than a week. 
 And they say she is there still." 
 
 " I might go down to the half-past five tram, 
 father," continued Koos, without heeding 
 his elder brother. ''If Dorothy was late at 
 the station, she will come by that." Devia- 
 tion from previous arrangements was so
 
 112 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 unusual in that methodical household that 
 the very idea of his sister's non-arrival made 
 the foolish young fellow uneasy. 
 
 ** Koos ! " said his father in his very sternest 
 accents. The boy's temerity amazed him. 
 ** I forbid you to leave the table. It appears 
 to me that the servant's evil example is 
 contagious. If Dorothea prefers to travel 
 during meal times, that is no reason why my 
 dinner should be disturbed." 
 
 " What a fool my father is ! " thought the 
 elder son,, as he bent over his plate. Said 
 the younger to himself: " What a brute ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. 
 
 " Can I help you ? " said a well-known voice, 
 as the train stopped at the little Wyker 
 station. 
 
 What could Dorothy do ? Her hands 
 were full of parcels. It was raining heavily, 
 and the miserable little village station is so 
 constructed, with considerable ingenuity, as 
 to give you a maximum of wading through 
 uncovered slush. It was wet ; it was late ; 
 she felt flurried by her previous misfortune. 
 And there stood Arnout Oostrum, umbrella 
 in hand. 
 
 " You ought not to speak to me, Arnout," 
 she said severely. " You make me very 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 uncomfortable." But she put her hand in his, 
 as she said it, and he helped her to alight. 
 
 " We shall not be alone in the tram," he 
 answered humbly, '' and I might have had 
 twenty minutes' t^te-d-tete already had I 
 chosen. I saw you getting into this com- 
 partment at Utrecht, and I " He 
 
 stumbled over his own thoughts and paused. 
 
 *' And you preferred to smoke," she said, 
 with a woman's inconsistency. She laughed 
 into his eyes, laughed at his confusion — and 
 at her own happiness, perhaps. 
 
 " Yes," he replied savagely. " I like 
 smoking and drinking. It's all I'm good for, 
 you know." 
 
 He was guiding Dorothy from puddle to 
 puddle, screening her and her parcels as 
 well as he could against the pelting down- 
 pour. But all the time he carefully protected 
 a little wicker basket which he had brought 
 with him from the town.
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AXD SWEET. I 1 5 
 
 " And flirting with pretty Frenchwomen," 
 said Dorothy demurely. She thought, poor 
 little thing ! that she could say it so safely ; 
 but next moment she recognised that she 
 had gone too far. 
 
 Arnout's face flushed angrily. '' You have 
 no right to say that," he cried, " nor anything 
 like it. You know nothing about it. You 
 have never even seen us together since that 
 first day when you came with my aunt." 
 
 '' Foolish fellow ! " thought Dorothy. " As 
 if I should say it if I knew I had a right to ! " 
 But she only remarked aloud : " Of course 
 I was joking, Arnout. Shall I hold that 
 little basket, while you put my box into the 
 tram ? " 
 
 Arnout blushed even more angrily, while 
 he did as she ordered him. There were two 
 or three people in the car whom she knew 
 sufficiently to bow to, and it was to break a 
 silence that she felt was becominor ridiculous 
 
 o
 
 T 1 6 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 that she said, as the tram glided away from 
 the station— 
 
 *' Your aunt Barsselius is coming to see 
 you again, the day after to-morrow. She 
 will give Miss Varelkamp no rest till she has 
 stolen the viscountess away from her." 
 
 " The viscountess," muttered Arnout with 
 a scowl, " can stay as long as she likes, and 
 she can go away when she chooses." 
 
 *' Would you really like her to go ? " asked 
 Dorothy mischievously. She was a woman. 
 She could not help herself. 
 
 " Yes," he said between his clenched 
 teeth. He clutched the little basket tightly 
 as he said it. He spoke with such unneces- 
 sary energy, that her fair face clouded for 
 a moment, and she hastened to change the 
 subject. 
 
 " I missed the dinner-train," she said ; '' I 
 shall get into a terrible scrape with my father, 
 I fear. You know he cannot bear us to be
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. I 1 7 
 
 unpunctual. But it was all your aunt's fault, 
 and not mine. She would persist in driving 
 round by ' Seldery's ' to get a box of hot- 
 house grapes for your invalid. I told her we 
 had started too late." 
 
 '* To get what ? " asked Arnout impatiently. 
 
 " Grapes. She said they would remind 
 Madame de Mongelas of her own country. 
 Grapes in June ! It sounds rather extrava- 
 gant, doesn't it ? And they were three 
 florins a pound. But you know, when your 
 aunt has an idea in her head, she usually 
 manages to get her own way." 
 
 " Dorothy," said Arnout, '' you remember 
 what I said to you the other day — the last 
 time I saw you — before them all ? You 
 haven't forgotten ? " 
 
 She did not answer for a moment. Per- 
 haps she could not. The steam-tram was 
 rushing along between the gaunt lines of 
 melancholy trees under the plashing rain.
 
 Il8 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 It was dark inside, and stuffy, by the false 
 light of a dirty petroleum lamp in the lessen- 
 ing day. The couple of passengers at the 
 other end of the faded crimson cushions were 
 half asleep. He bent forward, still grasping 
 the little basket and his dripping umbrella, 
 and holding them away from her. 
 
 '' You have no right to speak to me like 
 that," she burst out at length, angrily. " You 
 have no right to speak to me at all. I told 
 you so before, at the station ! My father does 
 not know yet. Nobody knows. I am not 
 to answer. You have put me a question, 
 and at the same time you have told me not 
 to answer it. I cannot answer it. I should 
 not know how. And until I know how, and 
 until you expect me to tell you, you have no 
 right to speak to me at all. Let me pass, if 
 you please, Arnout. I am going to stand 
 outside, if you please." She had risen as she 
 spoke, and had turned her back on the people
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. ITQ 
 
 in the far corner that they might neither hear 
 her voice nor see her face. She was bitterly 
 angry with the young fellow before her. 
 
 " You cannot go out into the rain, 
 Dorothy," he said, and she thought he said 
 it coolly. " I am very sorry. I beg your 
 pardon. I did not mean to offend you. Sit 
 down." 
 
 " Let me pass," she repeated in an agitated 
 manner. " You are insulting ! You are 
 cowardly, Arnout ! Let me pass ! " 
 
 And she swept by him, and went and 
 stood out on the little platform, where the 
 driving rain could beat upon her burning 
 face. What does a Dutch girl care for rain, 
 if it cannot hurt her clothes ? 
 
 Presently she came back to put her parcels 
 together, for they were approaching the 
 little '' halt " near Steenevest. The house 
 stood down a side lane, at a few minutes 
 walk from the main road. The tram drew
 
 120 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 up. Dorothy looked out into the gathering 
 darkness. There was nobody there to fetch 
 her. The rain came down in torrents, and 
 the puddles of the straggling lane lay shim- 
 mering between the steaming fields. It was 
 gloomy and miserable and forlorn. 
 
 ''You must allow me," said Arnout quietly, 
 almost timidly. He helped her out with her 
 parcels, and then he jumped from the tramcar 
 himself. 
 
 " Oh, don't ! '' she cried, stricken with 
 sudden penitence. " I can very well run down 
 the lane by myself. You mustn't lose your 
 place, Arnout. You will have to walk half 
 an hour in the rain ! " 
 
 His only answer was a wave of the hand 
 to the guard. Then he turned off the road, 
 with a box and a bag of hers in one hand. 
 In the other he held his umbrella over her 
 head, and at the same time he grasped his 
 precious little basket. Thus laden like a
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. I2T 
 
 pack-horse he strode down the lane. He 
 was haunted by a longing to turn up his 
 light-coloured trousers, but he felt that the 
 action would be Incongruous, and he desisted 
 with regret. 
 
 "You had better take my arm," he 
 presently said, still very mildly. " You won't 
 get so wet." And she humbly obeyed — very 
 angry with him still, but touched by the 
 thought of how wet he would be ere he got 
 home — for her sake ! 
 
 The short lane seemed Interminable ; the 
 increasing darkness lay upon her like an 
 accusation of guilt ; the very rain felt like 
 a sorrowful reproach. She must say some- 
 thing. '* What are you taking home so care- 
 fully to your Aunt Suzanna ? " she asked. 
 " Eggs ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 Another embarrassing silence. Dorothy 
 was deeply offended at his rudeness. " I
 
 122 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 shall not say another word to him," she 
 thought to herself. 
 
 Then, suddenly, *' Grapes for Madame de 
 Mongelas. There ! " 
 
 She thought he was joking. But she was 
 only the more offended. *' Indeed ! " she said 
 shortly. And then she splashed right into 
 a puddle, in her confusion and her disdain. 
 
 " Yes," he went on. '' It sounds rather 
 extravagant, doesn't it ? Grapes in June ! 
 And they are still three florins a pound — 
 only these cost three fifty. " (Oh, the child ! 
 the child !) '' But, you know, when one gets 
 an idea into one's head, one likes to have 
 one's way. And I thought they would 
 remind her of France." 
 
 " That was very considerate of you," said 
 Dorothy, with that air which the French call 
 " pinched." '' You are always very con- 
 siderate, Arnout, and it was kind of you to 
 help me through the rain. I should have
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. 1 23 
 
 asked you to wait for your aunt Barssellus's 
 grapes — they are in my box — but you will 
 hardly want them now, as you have got 
 some of your own. I shall send them over 
 to Miss Suzanna to-morrow. Thank you, 
 once more ; here we are at the gate. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 She made him a little curtsey, as she 
 finished speaking, and held out her hand for 
 her parcels. 
 
 " I may as well carry them up to the 
 door," he began, with that cool manner which 
 had already so irritated her. 
 
 But she interrupted him with an imperious 
 gesture. " Give me the things," she cried, 
 " and leave me in peace ! Good night." 
 
 " Good night, then," he said ; " and God 
 bless you ! Good-bye." 
 
 And he turned and left her, walking 
 swiftly down the road. 
 
 " Good night, Arnout," she called after him
 
 124 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 once more — through the rain, and the dark- 
 ness, and the gathering sadness of their 
 hearts. 
 
 But he did not answer. He passed on 
 along the deserted road, alone with his 
 thouehts, alone with the little wicker-basket 
 and its precious contents. Presently it 
 seemed to him as if he could bear its company 
 no longer. It was speaking to him, perhaps, 
 and he did not like the burden of its remarks. 
 And yet it went on speaking. 
 
 He stopped in the middle of the road. 
 To the right and left a steaming sea of 
 vapour across the meadows. In front and 
 behind two endless lines of dripping trees 
 beneath a sinking sky. No human creature 
 in sight. 
 
 Not so. Some one was splashing methodi- 
 cally along the road, a dark spot against the 
 grey damp in the distance — a labouring man 
 under a big umbrella.
 
 GRAPES, SOUR AND SWEET. 1 25 
 
 *' Good evening, friend," said Arnout. 
 " Would you like some grapes that I don't 
 care to carry any further ? " 
 
 The peasant stopped his slouching trudge. 
 He thouorht the other was lau^hlne at him, 
 and he was very careful, like all peasants, 
 about being laughed at. '' I like grapes," he 
 said slowly ; " oh yes, young master, I don't 
 mind grapes." 
 
 '' Take them," said Arnout, holding out 
 his basket. " Perhaps you know some sick 
 person to whom they will be welcome." 
 
 '' I don't know any sick person," answered 
 the peasant, still in the same slow way. '' I'll 
 eat them myself, young master." 
 
 Arnout broke away without further parley. 
 He looked down at his clothes and saw that 
 they were full of mud. He had ruined them. 
 The stupidity of the thought at that moment 
 threw him into a frenzy of anger and 
 disgust, and he tore down the road like a
 
 126 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 madman, crying out to himself aloud that he 
 was a villain as well as a fool ! 
 
 But all the time, in his heart of hearts, he 
 considered himself an injured saint.
 
 f#^ 
 
 &^* 
 
 S^P 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^O 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 m^ 
 
 1%;^:^ 
 
 'i 
 
 r*^-^ 
 
 aC'w^-i^^/ 
 
 E^^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DOROTHY ASKS A QUESTION AND RECEIVES 
 AN ANSWER. 
 
 The hall door was never locked till half-past 
 ten o'clock precisely. The far chime from 
 the village steeple mingled evening after 
 evening in the ears of the occupants of the 
 house with the grating of the door-key. 
 Mynheer van Donselaar always locked that 
 door himself. 
 
 Dorothy let herself in, her mantle making 
 a terrible drip around her on the white 
 marble with which the Dutch decorate their 
 entrance-halls. Nobody there. A sustained 
 droning from behind the study-door. Koos
 
 128 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 reading out his nightly coffee-report to his 
 father. 
 
 She crept upstairs to her room, a maidenly 
 little room, all pale chintz and pink roses. 
 Her mother's portrait in the place of honour, 
 the large one which her father had given 
 her on the birthday succeeding their loss. 
 A painful portrait, not because of that sad 
 look in the eyes — she had never known her 
 mother otherwise — but because of the con- 
 tinual recollection which it brought her of 
 the one occasion when her father's kiss had 
 conveyed a message of affection. He pecked 
 her cheek regularly, morning and evening, 
 at half-past eight and at half-past ten. 
 
 She sat down for a moment among her 
 little belongings, and noticed how the house- 
 maid had arranged them all awry. They 
 were presents, chiefly, from her brothers and 
 from friends at school — a china shepherdess, 
 an inkstand with " Gruss aus Wiesbaden,"
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. 1 29 
 
 two uncouth bears from Berne. An old 
 Bohemian glass held a mass of white lilacs ; 
 that was Koos's doing. He must have 
 bought them. Nobody but the head- 
 gardener might gather flowers at Steenevest. 
 
 Dorothy's heart softened at the thought of 
 her young brother. It was very bitter still, 
 and very miserable. Need that be added ? 
 When a woman's heart is bitter, it is always 
 miserable. It is only we men who can afford 
 to hate. 
 
 A knock came to the door, and that knock 
 brought Koos. '' My father would not let 
 me come and fetch you, Dolly," he said ; 
 '' I'm awfully sorry. What beastly weather 
 you had ! Who brought your things ? " 
 
 " Dolly " was the pet name which Koos 
 bestowed upon his sister when they were 
 alone. As children — in the time when, like 
 all boys, he detested kisses — they had agreed 
 that she might fine him a kiss whenever he 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 1 30 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 forgot to use it. And so he had got hito the 
 habit. What an age ago it seemed ! 
 
 " I am glad you did not come, Koos," she 
 answered. *' It is no weather for young 
 fellows with coughs. How is your throat ? 
 Did you put on the cold-water compresses 
 regularly, as I told you to do ? Are you 
 better ? " 
 
 What could Koos say ? He had not put 
 on the water compresses. He was delicate, 
 and apt to take cold ; but he was not con- 
 sumptive, as Dorothy insisted upon dreading. 
 Nursing him was her agony, and her joy. 
 
 ''Oh, I'm all right," said Koos. ''And 
 I took the thingummy, Doll. What d'ye call 
 it ? Aconite. I took it all." 
 
 He had done so. A solution had been 
 left him, to be imbibed in half-hourly sips. 
 He had swallowed down the whole at a 
 gulp. But, at any rate, the tumbler was 
 empty. And her soul was content.
 
 DOROTHY S QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. 1 3 I 
 
 *' Good boy," she said. " I have brought 
 you a present from ]\Ievrouw Barsselius. 
 You know you were always a prime favourite 
 of hers. She has sent you the old Dutch 
 airs which Barends has recently arranged for 
 the violin. I will unpack them for you as 
 soon as the tram-people bring my trunk. 
 Is my father very angr}^ ? " 
 
 " Oh, bother ! " began Koos impatiently, 
 but Dorothy would not allow that. He 
 knew it. She kept up the comedy of filial 
 affection with a beautiful conscientiousness 
 worthy of a better cause. 
 
 " Hush," she said. '' Let us go down to 
 him. Where is Karel ? Is he at home 1 " 
 
 " No," said Koos shortly. 
 
 '' Where is he then ? " 
 
 " I don't know. After no good, I fancy. 
 It's no business of mine, or of yours. Well. 
 Let's go down to the kitchen first. I told 
 the cook to keep some dinner for you."
 
 12,2 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 '' I am not hungry," said Dorothy ; and the 
 tide of her own affliction was borne in upon 
 her from the depth of Koos's astonished stare. 
 
 " Nonsense, Dolly ! You've had nothing 
 to eat since luncheon, I'll be bound. Since 
 when have you given up being hungry ? 
 Left your appetite in town ?" 
 
 Dorothy's appetite, as a rule, was un- 
 controlled by affectation. She laughed. It 
 seemed too ridiculous to leave one's dinner 
 untouched because one was wroth with one's 
 lover. 
 
 So they crept down to the kitchen, these 
 two — very softly, lest their father should 
 hear them. And Mina, the cook, who had 
 been in the family fifteen years, because she 
 had lived out the first twelve months (a 
 rare occurrence !) made her young mistress 
 welcome and set out on the kitchen table the 
 warmed-up remains of the evening meal. 
 Motherly old Mina regarded the young
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. 1 33 
 
 people more or less as her own children. 
 She found the fussy tyrant upstairs very easy 
 to manao^e. She served him his dinners to 
 the moment, and If he crossed her in any 
 matter of Importance she hinted that she was 
 ready to go. His children could not give 
 him warning. He had them there. 
 
 Dorothy swallowed a few morsels to 
 please her brother and Mina, and then she 
 had to give her account of the fortnight spent 
 in town. While Koos sat kicking his feet 
 against the dresser and the old servant 
 pottered about among her saucepans and 
 dishes, the young mistress told how she had 
 been to see Mina's sister, the widow who 
 lived in the " Walenhof,'' the Walloon alms- 
 houses, and how her asthma was better than 
 it had been in spring. '' My sister was 
 always up and down," remarked Mina pa- 
 renthetically ; '' and there's nothing to grow 
 old by like asthma. I suppose 'tis because
 
 134 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 it saves a body's breath." The recital of the 
 old widow's quarrels with her pauper neigh- 
 bours was broken short by an imperious peal 
 of the drawing-room bell, the master's peal. 
 It sent the brother and sister upstairs in 
 a flying hurry, just in time to meet the man- 
 servant, Piet. '' Mynheer is asking for the 
 Juffrouw," he said. Dorothy brushed back 
 her hair, with a movement of the hand, and 
 went in to her father. 
 
 '*A — ah," said Mynheer van Donselaar. 
 He was leaning back in his armchair, his 
 slippered feet stretched out before him, his 
 spectacles aslant over his pasty face and 
 Roman nose. His daughter saw at a glance 
 that he had not really been put out, but that 
 he was going to amuse himself by " showing 
 disagreeable." She knew the symptoms. 
 This was what the Paragon — with a capital 
 P — called feeling ''not anger, but regret." 
 
 " I am glad to perceive, by ocular demon-
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. 1 35 
 
 stration, Dorothea, that you are returned. 
 I should hardly have become acquainted with 
 the fact, had I waited until you thought fit 
 to inform me of it." 
 
 Dorothy went up to the tea-table. 
 
 "Oh, thank you," said her father, ''you 
 need give yourself no superfluous trouble. 
 I have poured out my tea for myself" 
 
 '* I missed the train, papa," said Dorothea. 
 " I could not help it. Mevrouw Barsselius 
 would not order the carriage earlier. When 
 you stay with people, you must do as they 
 like." 
 
 But Mynheer Donselaar never allowed 
 two grievances to be muddled up into one. 
 He took out his watch and he scanned it 
 attentively. 
 
 " You came, I presume, by the eight o'clock 
 tram. Am I not correct ? " he said. 
 
 '' Yes, papa. It was the first that would 
 take my luggage."
 
 136 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 " Very well. Then, allowing seven minutes 
 for the walk to the house, I still find thirty- 
 three unaccounted for. It is now twenty 
 minutes to nine." 
 
 " I ran upstairs to change my things, papa. 
 It is pouring with rain. And then," con- 
 tinued Dorothy^ disdaining subterfuge, '' I 
 saw Koos and went with him " 
 
 Her father waved the hand that held his 
 nightly newspaper. 
 
 " No, thank you, Dorothea. I have asked 
 no excuses, and I require none. Where 
 filial piety has not spoken, paternal affection 
 may well hold its peace. But I must say 
 that if you had shown due consideration for 
 my wishes, it would have been impossible — 
 I repeat, impossible — for Mevrouw Barsselius 
 to cause you to miss the train.'* 
 
 " I am sorry, papa," said Dorothy w^earily. 
 " I can say no more than that. There is 
 something else — of more importance — I
 
 Dorothy's question and its answer. 137 
 
 would speak to you about, if you can listen 
 to me." 
 
 " You must allow me to finish my paper 
 first," said the Paragon. " I am late as it is. 
 My whole evening has been deranged by 
 your thoughtlessness. It is like you, Dorothea, 
 to tell me that some little trumpery interest of 
 yours is of more importance than the comfort 
 of the whole family. I don't speak of myself, 
 mind, but your mother would never have 
 said that. Your mother was an estimable 
 woman, Dorothy." 
 
 " Indeed, papa, she must have been," said 
 Dorothy. It w^as all she could do to keep 
 the sneer of the words from breaking forth 
 in her voice. She could safely have sneered 
 at her father. Therein lay the danger. His 
 ear was impervious to irony. And Karel, 
 at any rate, availed himself of that circum- 
 stance, whenever he thought fit. 
 
 " You must wait till I have read the
 
 130 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 paper," continued Mynheer van Donselaar 
 querulously. " And then you can tell me 
 about it, while I am having my game of 
 ' Patience.' But, if you have bought too 
 many dresses and overstepped your allowance, 
 I would rather not hear of it, Dorothy. I 
 warned you before you went to Mevrouw 
 Barsselius. She is wasteful, but she has got 
 money to waste. I can't give you a penny 
 extra. You know it is against my rule. 
 You must make the deficit good next 
 month." 
 
 ** It is not money," said Dorothy scornfully. 
 She paced up and down the room, while her 
 father finished his paper. This, then, was 
 her home-coming. She had expected nothing 
 else ; yet her heart rebelled [at the fulfilment 
 of its expectations. It felt sore all over, and 
 she was wrathful, above all things, with 
 herself for the soreness. She was not senti- 
 mental, she told herself, and she detested all
 
 Dorothy's question and its answer. 139 
 
 things maudlin, and yet here she was crying 
 for a little motherly sympathy, which she 
 knew she could not get. Mevrouw Bars- 
 selius was the last person to offer it. She 
 had bantered the girl all through the week 
 with her love-story, getting such rough fun 
 out of it as made the fat widow's rubicund 
 chops shake like a jelly. It had never struck 
 her that Dorothy might not relish the joke. 
 
 Mynheer looked round uneasily. His 
 daughter's tramp disturbed his appreciation 
 of the wise deliberations of the Amsterdam 
 Town Council. And, besides, the movement 
 seemed to him very unladylike. He had 
 a horror of all things Improper, except when 
 propriety clashed with his comfort. He did 
 not mind, you see, letting his daughter come 
 home alone In the rain. 
 
 Dorothy noticed her father's movement. 
 She came and stood by the tea-table, and 
 began washing up the cups. She did it
 
 1 40 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 mechanically, but she was a Dutch housewife. 
 There was no dangler that she would let one 
 fall. 
 
 " Well ? " said Mynheer van Donselaar at 
 length, laying down his paper. " And what 
 is this important matter ? We have still 
 half an hour before supper-time to talk it 
 over. Reach me my cards, Dorothy, if you 
 please." 
 
 There was a kind rino- in his voice. He 
 had greatly improved in temper. His news- 
 paper had agreed with him, as Koos was 
 wont to say. Formerly it used to be a 
 matter of anxious inquiry with the children, 
 how papa had "taken" his paper. It 
 smoothed him down all over, or it rubbed 
 him up the wrong way. Mynheer van 
 Donselaar's '' paper " was the commercial 
 intelligence, with a dash of Amsterdam small 
 talk thrown in. 
 
 Dorothy welcomed the change with a
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. I4I 
 
 smile. She orot the cards, thouQ^h not 
 without an uncomfortable twinge of self- 
 reproach, for it was her regular duty to read 
 out the news to her father while he played 
 his two games of " quarante-neuf." She 
 would have surprised you by her knowledge 
 of the prices of "Java" and ''Fine old 
 Brazil." The self-reproach was none the less 
 disagreeable, because she felt that she had 
 no cause for it. There is nothing in the 
 world so irritating as unreasonable self- 
 reproach. 
 
 " Let me tell you about it quietly, father," 
 she said. And she sat down close by his side. 
 
 "Yes, child, that is right," said the father. 
 *' Only, before you begin, I wish you would 
 tell me, now I think of it, exactly what time 
 it was at the Overstad station when you 
 left ? " And he brought out the abominable 
 old watch, his master, and peered anxiously 
 into his daughter's face.
 
 142 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 The girl's heart recoiled again for a 
 moment ; then she too drew forth her watch 
 and compared it with her father's. There 
 was a difference of no less than three minutes 
 — a great blow to the old gentleman — and he 
 fussed about it, and speculated on it, and 
 examined the works to account for it, till 
 Dorothy could stand the tension no longer. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you this, papa," she said, 
 as carelessly as she could, " that Arnout 
 Oostrum has asked me to be his wife." 
 
 If she had calculated on a great " coup," 
 a sudden revulsion of feeling, she was doomed 
 to fresh disappointment. Mynheer van 
 Donselaar slowly finished winding up his 
 watch ; then he held it to his ear, and gently 
 shook it ; then he put it into his fob, and 
 began wiping his spectacles. 
 
 Neither broke the silence for a few 
 moments. Mynheer van Donselaar peered 
 sideways through his spectacles, and then set
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. 1 43 
 
 to polishing them with Increasing energy. 
 Dorothy knew neither what she hoped nor 
 dreaded. Her one feeHng was that her 
 anger was kindled against Arnout, and that 
 somehow It made her so miserable to be 
 angry with him that she wanted comfort, and 
 even advice. Ay, actually she felt that she 
 needed advice. 
 
 Said Mynheer van Donselaar at length : 
 " I object. Absolutely and Irrevocably, I 
 object. The boy has, I consider, behaved 
 disgracefully. I shall never consent to the 
 match." 
 
 Suddenly Dorothy realised how unprepared 
 she had been for this answer. Though the 
 subject had never been mooted between her 
 and her father, it had somehow of late 
 become a pretty safe possibility that Arnout 
 would sooner or later make a proposition of 
 this kind. Perhaps Mejuffrouw Varelkamp's 
 aspirations in this direction had mutely com
 
 144 ^^ ^LD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 municated themselves to others. However 
 this be, Dorothy had fancied — vaguely, for 
 the whole subject had been vague to her, one 
 on which she dared not allow her thoughts 
 to rest — had fancied vaguely that her father 
 would not make any overwhelming objections, 
 that he would only oppose her wishes as long 
 as it amused him to do so. But what direc- 
 tion would her wishes take ? Hush ! that 
 was a question which it were *' sin " to con- 
 sider — as yet. 
 
 " I put my foot dowm," said Mynheer van 
 Donselaar. " I am master in my own family. 
 I wish you would ring, Dorothea ; I cannot 
 understand why Piet does not fetch away the 
 tea-things. I request that you will never 
 mention the subject again." 
 
 Dorothy rose, but she did not move 
 towards the bell-rope. She confronted her 
 father. The forbidden question was answered 
 once for all, and on the blank page of her life
 
 Dorothy's question and its answer. 145 
 
 the recording angel had written down the 
 answer, and sealed It with her heart's red 
 blood. It is an answer which no woman 
 gives twice, if she gives it at all. It is an 
 answer which, should she withhold it, leaves 
 her life a meaningless voice in the void. 
 
 That evening, for the first time in her life, 
 Dorothea's eyes blazed down revolt at her 
 father. She towered over him in all the 
 splendour of her purity, her loneliness, her 
 maidenhood. And her heart rejoiced within 
 her, in the midst of its misery, at the thought 
 of his impotence to hurt her, of his powerless- 
 ness to deprive her of this new-born treasure 
 of secret deliorht. What could he do but 
 say : You may not marry ? The thought of 
 his wishing to say it, or of her desiring him 
 to unsay it, did not enter her head that 
 night. It was love she was thinking of, 
 love, all-sufficient, all-resplendent, victorious 
 and irresistible. And her father's *' I forbid 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 it," shrivelled down into a cruel but meaning- 
 less jest. 
 
 She answered him very little. " I love 
 him," she said quietly. ''You can hardly 
 forbid me that." And then she stopped to 
 ring the bell for the tea-things, and walked 
 out of the room. 
 
 '^ It is the spirit of the times," said 
 Mynheer van Donselaar to himself, as soon 
 as he had recovered his breath, " and 
 Dorothea always had a tendency towards 
 insolence. It should have been whipped out 
 of her before she was five, as I whipped it 
 out of the boys. But her mother was always 
 a poor feeble creature. And feeble parents 
 make headstrong children. I should never 
 have dared to say to my father what my 
 children say to me." 
 
 Presently, however, he smiled, a mean 
 little smile. After all, the money was in his
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. I47 
 
 hands, and Arnout Oestrum was a pauper. 
 Dorothy was just barely nineteen ; she 
 would not be of age for four years. Silly 
 young people. He felt ruffled all over his 
 methodical little soul by the idea that Arnout 
 should have approached a daughter of his 
 without his leave. A man who could act 
 thus towards Mynheer van Donselaar was 
 for ever unworthy of the august title of son- 
 in-law. But no little differences with Dorothy 
 could disturb the placid repose of his soul, 
 with a rise of ten per cent, in the coffee- 
 market. He was sorry, he told himself, to 
 cross the girl in anything. He must not 
 consider what was most agreeable, but what 
 was his duty to his child. 
 
 He meant it too. Most certainly he meant 
 it. There were half a dozen reasons why he 
 should hesitate, and this was not the manner, 
 at any rate, in which such questions deserved 
 to be treated. Poor little Dorothy ! She
 
 148 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 would cool down by to-morrow and ask his 
 pardon. He must not bestow it too readily. 
 
 " Where is Karel ? " he asked Koos, who 
 came in to supper. 
 
 ** Karel ? Up in his room, I suppose," 
 said Koos. 
 
 '* Feeble parents make headstrong children." 
 A truism. Mynheer van Donselaar. Let 
 Koos give you another — he is a good fellow, 
 none the less : " And tyranny is the father 
 of lies." 
 
 Dorothy ran up to her room, her whole 
 frame in a quiver of joyous laughter. It was 
 wrong ; she felt it was wrong, indecorous, 
 unfeeling. But she could not help herself. 
 Ch the brightness of it, the happiness of it, 
 the warm, the golden sunlight of it ! She 
 had been angry with Arnout Oostrum ; she 
 was angry with him still, perhaps ; but oh 
 the sweetness of an an^er from which the
 
 DOROTHYS QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER. 1 49 
 
 bitterness has passed away ! She would scold 
 him when next they met ; she would scold 
 him severely. No, no; she would never dare 
 to meet him again. She was frightened at 
 the idea of meetino^ him. Never would she 
 venture to speak to him of the subject. 
 Never would any conversation be possible 
 between them on any subject whatsoever. 
 
 She sat down before the uncurtained 
 window, alone with her happiness in the 
 dark. The rain had ceased, and great 
 masses of cloud were driving rapidly across 
 a watery moon. The tumult of the stormy 
 summer night was at discord with the peace 
 within her, the peace of a heart lying anchored 
 for ever in the face of coming^ danger. A 
 lost moonbeam, fluttering downwards, fell 
 for a passing moment across the pensive 
 portrait on the wall. She watched it come 
 and go, and then, suddenly, silently, she sank 
 on her knees.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 
 
 " Hand me the egg, Betje," said Mejuffrouw 
 Varelkamp sharply ; '' I can't bear to look at 
 you any longer. It gives me the fidgets. 
 You are very stupid, Betje. You don't even 
 know how to beat up an egg.'' 
 
 '' Humph!" said Betje. 
 
 " You're as stupid as a hen," continued 
 Suzanna, vigorously whisking round the 
 creamy mess in the little bowl. " Providence 
 brings you an egg, and you don't even know 
 what to do with It." 
 
 " I'd know quick enough," protested Betje, 
 *' only I never get a chance except on Easter 
 Monday. And if you'd only buy one of
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 15! 
 
 those egg-whipper things that Mina has up 
 at Steenevest, you'd save yourself and me 
 a deal of trouble, Juffrouw. Especially when 
 French people come into the house, that 
 seem to think that God Almighty intended 
 man for an omelet." 
 
 '* Why for an omelet ? " asked the Juffrouw, 
 suddenly interested. It was no use speaking 
 figuratively to Mejuffrouw Varelkamp. She 
 only understood her own similes, graphic 
 enough sometimes, never anybody else's. 
 
 " Humph ! " said Betje. Her mistress 
 knew that that enigmatical word contained 
 the essence of all Betje's religion and 
 philosophy, and of most of her passions and 
 affections. She was a woman of little know- 
 ledge and much wisdom, and her silence, at 
 any rate, was golden. Silence is always 
 a beautiful thing in a woman. But it is not 
 till we meet with it in a confidential maid- 
 servant that we know what a very beautiful
 
 T52 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 thing it can be. Betje could be silent when 
 she chose, and she could also talk. Good 
 heavens ! hov/ she could talk ! 
 
 She was not afraid of Miss Varelkamp, 
 but she stood in awe of her undeniable 
 virtues. She had an open eye for those 
 virtues, and secretly venerated them. And 
 therefore — marvellous to behold — she was 
 possessed of another quality, rare enough in 
 most women, but phenomenal in a domestic 
 servant ; she was capable of occasionally 
 admitting — at least to herself — that she 
 might have been in the wrong. She accepted 
 her mistress's not infrequent scoldings with a 
 certain amount of equanimity. She accepted 
 them the more meekly, if anything, when 
 she felt them to be totally undeserved, for 
 she knew that Miss Varelkamp would be 
 certain to realise that fact in an hour or two, 
 and she could tell by experience that there 
 was no surer prelude to " a good time all
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. T53 
 
 round " than such a moment of unmerited 
 reproach. And, after all, in those matters 
 which seemed to Betje the only ones of any 
 importance here below (except the weekly 
 doze in church), the routine of housework, 
 cleaning and cookery, Juffrouw Varelkamp 
 knew what's what, and her maid was aware 
 that she did. There was not a housewife in 
 all the country-side could make a gulden go 
 farther than Miss Varelkamp. Guldens 
 were very scarce at the cottage. Betje was 
 proud of the use Miss Varelkamp made of 
 them. She was even proud — w^ith an intense 
 loyalty — of their scarcity. Her own wages 
 were low enough, Heaven knows. She 
 would have been glad to get more, but, 
 knowing this to be impossible, she was 
 proud of earning so little. '' Our Juffrouw's 
 guldens," she would remark to Arnout, 
 "contain a hundred and twenty cents." She 
 was fond of Arnout, of course. He was a
 
 154 AX OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 bit of the cottage, and the cottage, as a unity, 
 was her reHgion. But she had one great 
 objection to him. As she often told him, 
 " he thought that guldens were made to 
 melt." 
 
 Betje was a charity child. She had been 
 with Miss Varelkamp for thirty years, ever 
 since she was twelve. The roses on her 
 hard cheeks were several shades darker than 
 those on her crisp cotton dress. On Sundays 
 her great mob-cap was an imposing structure 
 of white silk ribbons and lace. The savings 
 of her lifetime had been sunk in that cap. 
 Yet it was not vanity that the cap repre- 
 sented, but respectability. She abhorred 
 *'man," or, as she called him, "the men." 
 He was her personification of evil, just as 
 " our house " was her embodiment of good. 
 But the thine she abominated even more 
 than ''the men" was that vanity in woman 
 to which she alluded as " those giddy girls,"
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 1 55 
 
 viz. the vanity of those things she possessed 
 not, the vanity of the power to please the 
 masculine sex. And she despised luxury ; 
 she despised it in her mistress's words, " the 
 God-forgetting luxury of our days." Luxury 
 to her meant as many eggs in a pudding as 
 were written down in the cookery book. 
 
 ** Not that I want an egg-whipper," she 
 said, as she stood admiringly watching her 
 mistress for one moment. '' I could do it 
 as well without, Juffrouw, if I only had the 
 time. But I've 7io^ the time to wait upon 
 French papists and do all my work as well." 
 
 " I have heard that remark several times 
 in the last week, Betje," said the Juffrouw, 
 calmly heaping up the stiff foam. " And 
 I have told you before that it is not devoid 
 of truth. And that is why I try, as far as I 
 can, to do both my own work, and some of 
 yours." 
 
 Betje's heart smote her. She had gone to
 
 T56 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 bed an hour or two later during the last 
 week. She did not know — and she did not 
 like to guess — how much later Miss Varel- 
 kamp had gone. 
 
 The stranger was a great incumbrance in 
 the little house, and Betje deeply resented 
 her presence. She hated her. But it was 
 not on account of the extra work. It was on 
 account of the extra expense, which she well 
 knew Miss Varelkamp was not able to bear. 
 
 Hitherto-unheard-of delicacies had been 
 seen in the cottage kitchen. The doctor 
 ordered them. The patient asked for them. 
 Well, no, she did not ask for them ; but she 
 somehow sio^nified their absence. And 
 Betje's spirit boiled within her as she cooked 
 them. *' It goes above my understanding," 
 said Betje, " why a person's tongue wants 
 tickling because they squeeze her shins." 
 This was Betje's idea of " massage." Already 
 the Frenchwoman had consumed three bottles
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 1 57 
 
 of claret and half a bottle of port wine. 
 ** And of the very best/' said Betje, resent- 
 fully. This was an additional grievance, that 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp would not buy second- 
 rate thinors. Even for herself she would take 
 the commonest, but the best of its common 
 kind. 
 
 And neighbour's Cornelie was in constant 
 attendance. Xot that Betje objected to this. 
 She enjoyed having a young girl under her 
 to bully and educate and generally *' superin- 
 tend," even as Miss Varelkamp superintended 
 her. She would make a perfect servant of 
 any young girl entrusted to her care, as 
 
 perfect a servant as Oh no ; Betje was 
 
 not vain. She was humble with that beauti- 
 ful humility which delights in its own virtue, 
 because it is not of itself. She '' thanked 
 God and Mejuffrouw Varelkamp she was not 
 like those giddy girls." 
 
 Neighbour's Cornelie zi'as. Her hair was
 
 155 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 giddy — it frizzled ; and her eyes were giddy 
 — they danced ; and her nose was giddy — 
 it turned up. She was giddy all over, as she 
 came skipping down the lane ; but the giddi- 
 ness left her when she turned into Miss 
 Varelkamp s little garden. They called her 
 ** Keetje " in Miss Varelkamp's house. And 
 nobody was ever giddy in Betje's kitchen. 
 They couldn't be. 
 
 In that kitchen Cornelie's bright locks had 
 to be smoothed under Keetje's little cap. It 
 had been the co7iditio sine qua non of her 
 engagement. And her mother, the lodge- 
 keeper of the great house farther up the road, 
 had overruled Cornelie's rebellious tears. 
 She was glad enough that the child should 
 learn something besides hair-curling, a great 
 girl of seventeen ! So, after weeks of anxious 
 deliberations with herself in her chamber, 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp announced to Betje 
 that she had resolved " to take the washing
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 1 59 
 
 into the house," as she said. She never asked 
 advice of Betje, or talked anything over with 
 her; that was a characteristic ''unwisdom" 
 in the self-willed old woman. She arranged 
 for herself all the little '' important decisions " 
 of her life. She now engaged Keetje, ''and 
 mind, you are to bring a clean apron, Keetje',' 
 to come two days in the week for the sum of 
 one gulden in all, and her dinner. And then 
 she set to teaching Betje washing, Ironing, 
 and starching as these arts had never been 
 practised before. And Betje taught Keetje, 
 as much as Keetje was able, or willing, to 
 learn. 
 
 Said Betje to her Juffrouw suddenly, as the 
 latter stood, ^gg in hand, ready to leave the 
 kitchen, " It can't be helped. And you 
 mustn't mind me, Juffrouw. But tell you 
 I must." 
 
 Miss Varelkamp paused, and set down the 
 large cup — her father's, with *' From Friend-
 
 l60 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 ship " on it in tarnished gilt. Something in 
 the maid's manner frightened her. Could 
 Betje be " agitated " ? 
 
 " What is it, Betje ? " she said. 
 
 " It's just this, Juffrouw, that I wish the 
 girl had never come into the house. It's not 
 the girls whom you have to ^ell to wear a cap 
 that should be taken into situations as ours." 
 
 ** Has Keetje broken another of the best 
 dishes ? " asked Mejuffrouw Varelkamp 
 anxiously. 
 
 '' There are worse thino^s to be broken 
 than dishes," replied Betje, shaking her head 
 vehemently. ** ' Can a man take fire in his 
 bosom and not be burned ? ' The blessed 
 Bible knows all about it, Juffrouw." 
 
 And she shut up her lips with a snap. 
 
 ** If the creature flirts with the trades- 
 people," said Mejuffrouw Varelkamp, much 
 relieved, "you must not let her open the 
 door to them,"
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. l6l 
 
 " And am I to play nurse to the slattern ? " 
 cried the handmaid in crimson indignation. 
 ** Then you'd best lock both doors of the 
 kitchen. There's young fools inside the 
 house as well as outside, Juffrouw Varelkamp. 
 And there's those I've had on my knees 
 when they were babies that have got beyond 
 listening to an old woman like me." 
 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp understood. Her 
 hard old face grew harder, if possible, and 
 whiter. She did not believe a word of 
 Betje's accusation. 
 
 '* How dare you insinuate such things ! " 
 she cried in great wrath. She took the cup 
 up again. It trembled in her hand. '' My 
 nephew ! A student of theology and a 
 gentleman ! And a dirty servant-girl like — 
 Faugh ! You are a very wicked woman, 
 Betje. A very, very wicked woman ! " And 
 she stalked out of the kitchen, her gaunt 
 figure erect, her Roman nose in the air. 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 l62 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 She had got more than half-way up the 
 steep staircase before she definitely resolved 
 in her mind to come down again. She 
 marched back upon Betje, still holding out 
 in front of her the yellow mass with its 
 protruding spoon. 
 
 "Produce your proofs," she said; "not 
 that you have got any." 
 
 Betje, with two bright spots on her usually 
 rosy cheeks, faced away from the hearth. 
 "Judgment doesn't belong to me," she said, 
 "and 'tis a fool that hearkeneth not to 
 understanding." Miss Varelkamp did not 
 wince. " But when a young man and a 
 young woman walk evening after evening in 
 the moonlight, then Lord have mercy on the 
 young man, says I. The young woman, 
 artful minx, can look after herself." 
 
 " Let me hear that again," says Suzanna, 
 "distinctly. You said 'In the moonlight,' 
 Betje ; do you mean the lane ? "
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 1 63 
 
 " I do," replied Betje, solemnly setting her 
 arms akimbo ; '' but I can't say ' God 
 Almighty,' Juffrouw, because it's the city 
 of the great King." 
 
 " I did not ask you to," said Suzanna 
 sharply. "And when you spoke of the 
 young man, you meant my nephew Arnout ; 
 and when you spoke of the young woman, 
 you meant — " a gulp — '' Keetje ? " 
 
 " Even so, amen," said Betje, feeling as if 
 she were in church. 
 
 Miss Varelkamp turned without another 
 word, and jerked herself upstairs again. The 
 expression is not an elegant one, but it be.st 
 describes Miss Varelkamp's movements. 
 Rapidity was the old lady's most marked 
 characteristic, both in action and in thoueht. 
 She lived in jerks. 
 
 She stood in the little lobby. '* Arnout ! " 
 she called in her shrill voice, " Arnout ! " 
 
 Young Varelkamp was reading to Madame
 
 1 64 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 de Mongelas. He came out of the lady's 
 room, a yellow-cover novel in his hand. 
 
 '' Come down to me immediately," said his 
 aunt. 
 
 She led the way into the kitchen, where 
 Betje still stood as if transfixed. Young 
 Arnout followed, wondering. 
 
 *'Arnout," began Miss Varelkamp in a 
 self-satisfied voice, '' oblige me by telling 
 Betje this moment that it is not you who 
 walk up and down the lane of evenings with 
 neighbour's Keetje. There is some mis- 
 understanding which must be at once cleared 
 up. Do as I bid you." 
 
 Arnout coloured up to the roots of his 
 hair. He was humiliated and annoyed. He 
 looked round the mean little kitchen — mean 
 and clean — and at the pink servant, half 
 anxious, half defiant by the stove, and at his 
 prim old aunt, with her air of conscious 
 triumph, the forgotten cup still prominent
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 1 65 
 
 before her meao^re bust. His head was full 
 of the open page in his hand, on which the 
 countess was just telling the handsome tenor 
 that her heart was not her husband's. The 
 whole situation was ludicrous, insulting, in- 
 supportable. He scowled at the two eager 
 women, a very ugly scowl from his bright 
 young face. 
 
 '* Keetje ? " he said. " Keetje ? What 
 do you mean, Tante Suze ? I wish Keetje 
 and the idiot that runs after her were at the 
 bottom of the Zuyder Zee." And he turned 
 on his heel. 
 
 " It's all right, you see, Betje," said 
 Suzanna, with a shrewd smile. '' Our Arnout 
 never called himself an idiot yet, and I don't 
 think he ever will." 
 
 But before the young gentleman had 
 reached the kitchen door Betje had run 
 after him and had caught up his hand, which 
 she was vehemently kissing and fondling and
 
 l66 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 pressing to her lips. He tried in vain to 
 escape her. " God bless 3^ou, Jongeheer," she 
 said — and he hated above all things to be 
 called " jongeheer " ; '' but you remember, 
 when you were little, ' as an ox goeth to the 
 slauo^hter ' — as an ox. Dear Heaven, I fear 
 me you will go like an ox when the time 
 comes. Oh, I am so glad. Don't be angry 
 with your old nurse who loves you. Oh 
 dear, dear!" And Betje sat down on the 
 kitchen floor and wept. 
 
 Arnout broke away and ran upstairs, two 
 steps at a time. He was very much dis- 
 gusted, and somewhat amused, and — yes, 
 yes, why not give him his due ? — and a little 
 bit orlad of the fulness and entireness of 
 his '' No." 
 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp stood placidly 
 gazing at Betje, huddled up on the floor In 
 confusion of body and soul. She had it in 
 her mind to commence a terrible scolding,
 
 A STORM IN AN EGG-CUP. 1 67 
 
 but the faithful servant's tears disarmed her. 
 And the plenitude of her victory rendered 
 her magnanimous. 
 
 ''The idea!" she said vigorously. ''My 
 nephew ! The impudence of it, Betje ! " But 
 she said no more. 
 
 As she stood there, her glance suddenly 
 fell on the forgotten cup in her hand, and 
 her manner immediately changed. " Dear 
 Heaven ! " she said, with genuine concern. 
 "It has all gone down. I shall have to beat 
 up a fresh one. What a pity of the egg ! 
 And the port." 
 
 Betje picked herself up slowly from the 
 floor. " Thinketh no evil," she muttered 
 half aloud. " I wonder — I do wonder, who 
 the fellow is ? " 
 
 <^
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 UN abb£ a marier. 
 
 Arnout went back Immediately to Madame 
 de Mongelas. 
 
 " Eh blen," she said, looking up from her 
 flower-painting, '' and CanzinI ? " — Canzlnl 
 was the tenor — *' what has he replied to the 
 countess ? *' 
 
 '' What should he reply, madame ? " said 
 Arnout, resuming his low seat by the couch. 
 " If the count Is unkind, Canzlnl must kill 
 him." 
 
 Madame laughed a musical little laugh. 
 ''You child!" she said. ''He will not kill 
 the count, but he will make love to the 
 countess. It Is simpler. And more agree-
 
 UN abb£ a marier. 169 
 
 able to all three, and to monsieur the Pro- 
 cureur-General." 
 
 " And if her heart be empty," said Arnout 
 boldly, and proud of his own boldness, ''why 
 should not another man step in and take 
 possession ? " 
 
 Madame de Mongelas gazed thoughtfully 
 out of the window. A far-away look came 
 into her great black eyes. 
 
 '' A woman's heart is never empty," she 
 said softly. " You may be sure, mon gar9on, 
 that Canzini had filled it before she dis- 
 covered there was no room for the count." 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Arnout 
 was wishing he could say brilliant things, 
 such as this elegant, charming creature was 
 doubtless accustomed to hear. Madame de 
 Mongelas was busy with her own reflections. 
 
 " Nonsense," she said, with a complete 
 change of voice. ''What does a serious young 
 man like you know of such matters ? But
 
 170 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 you are an abbe, monsieur, or next best — or 
 worst — to one. An abbe a marier ! How 
 droll it sounds ! A Dutch Bayard, allez ! 
 A chevalier sans cceur et sans approches ! " 
 
 She laughed again, oh, how merrily ! She 
 was laughing at him. He did not always 
 understand her, but in the laughter and the 
 orood-humoured badinas^e there could be no 
 mistake. He was a child in her eyes, 
 amusing, harmless, above all, respectable ; 
 in his, she was a woman of the world, 
 supremely fascinating, on whom he wanted 
 for that very reason to make a good impres- 
 sion. She never said '' risque " things to 
 him. In France all married women said 
 things that he would have thought "risque." 
 He would have blushed scarlet, had she 
 done it, but he was angry with her for 
 leaving it undone. He was her "little 
 Provincial." She treated him like a child. 
 
 " Read on," she said. And he obeyed.
 
 UN ABBfi A MARIER. Ijl 
 
 ** Maxima debetur pueris reverentia," he 
 growled to himself. She caught the growl, 
 but not the words. ''What is that you 
 mumble to yourself ? " she said. " Evil of 
 me ? " He laughed off the supposition, and 
 turned to the volume on his knee, but she 
 dropped an exquisite little hand across it. 
 How white the little hand looked on the 
 yellow paper, and what vain efforts It made 
 to spread itself right over the two pages ! 
 " What did you say ? " she repeated. " You 
 must tell me ; or I shall think it was bad." 
 
 No, he did not want to say it. He would 
 not make himself ridiculous by saying it. 
 He was not going to say it, he — had he 
 learned as yet to combat a lovely woman's 
 will ? They quarrelled over it, he awkward 
 and stubborn, she graceful, kindly, teasing — 
 and at the last just a little bit offended. That 
 brought him round at once. 
 
 " Guess it for yourself, madame," he said,
 
 172 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 as sullenly as he dared. And he repeated 
 the words. 
 
 She listened, with a smile for the easy 
 victory around her handsome lips. The little 
 squabble amused her. The boy amused her. 
 She wanted amusement, ceaseless amusement, 
 as another looks for daily bread. She took 
 it where she could in the dull little house. 
 
 " Maxima," she repeated, knitting her 
 brows. "Une maxime d'Hebe est la pure 
 reverence. No, no ; it isn't that. Don't tell 
 me! I must guess. How stupid I am!" 
 She spread out her arms as if to keep him 
 off. '* Say it again. Say it slowly ! " Her 
 vanity was touched. 
 
 Again he obeyed her, angry with himself 
 for doing so. 
 
 '* Puer," she said slowly, ''pueril." Sud- 
 denly she looked full at him. It was her 
 turn to colour. " I have it," she said quietly, 
 " • We owe the o^reatest reverence to the
 
 UN abb£ a marier. 173 
 
 young.' It is true. How true It is ! Thank 
 you, mon chevalier." 
 
 She looked at him. Perhaps she was 
 thinking more of herself than of the boy 
 before her ; but yet, as she looked, she could 
 not help understanding the expression of his 
 face. lie was deeply mortified. Poor boy! 
 his morning had not been of the pleasantest. 
 She had the good sense to spare him further 
 chagrin. 
 
 " I mean, thank you for telling me, 
 monsieur," she said sweetly. " You have 
 too much usage of the world to contradict 
 a woman. Thank you for your kindness in 
 reading to me, but I think we shall read no 
 farther this morning. My head is tired, 
 and I am going to repose myself. And, 
 after all, the loves of Monsieur Canzini are 
 hardly worth reading aloud." 
 
 She dismissed him with a gracious nod of 
 that exquisite head. Then she lay back in
 
 I 74 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 her cushions and took up the story he had 
 left unfinished. She blushed several times 
 to herself as she read. Monsieur Canzini 
 and his countess were having a merry time 
 of it together, short and sharp, with pistols 
 for two and laudanum for one at the end. 
 She blushed — for thought of the boy down- 
 stairs who was not reading to her. And she 
 threw the book from her, long before she 
 reached the end, wath a weary little sigh of 
 disofust. 
 
 " I must send to Paris for the ' Ami de la 
 Jeunesse,' " she said. 
 
 And then again she blushed to herself for 
 the thought. 
 
 Juffrouw Varelkamp, in the meantime, w^as 
 anxiously preparing her guest's luncheon. 
 She had turned to this part of the day's 
 labour as soon as Betje had taken up the 
 long-delayed Qgg. She was always doing
 
 UN abb£ a marier. 175 
 
 something for Madame de Mongelas, and it 
 is to be hoped that Madame de Mongelas 
 duly appreciated her devotedness. 
 
 That lady had now spent the better part 
 of a week at the cottage — from Monday to 
 Friday. There was no palpable reason why 
 she should stay much longer. The village 
 doctor came twice a day and rubbed the 
 injured foot, and he had declared that 
 although it would be some time before she 
 used it, yet there was no reason why she 
 should not order a carriage and drive 
 whithersoever she would. Madame de 
 Mongelas showed no anxiety to give the 
 order. '' And what is to become of your 
 excellent massage, doctor," she said, " if I go 
 back to the town ? " The doctor shrugged 
 his shoulders. He thought his massage 
 excellent, as very probably it was, but pro- 
 fessional etiquette obliged him to say so 
 indirectly.
 
 176 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 So the vicomtesse stayed at Wyk to com- 
 plete her cure, and she stayed at the cottage, 
 because neither she nor her hosts felt capable 
 of sueeestlnor a move to the villao^e Inn. 
 After the first burst of astonished dismay, 
 Miss Varelkamp had settled down into a not 
 too ungracious recognition of the stranger's 
 claims to hospitality. Young Arnout's 
 declaration to Dorothy had arrived in the 
 very nick of time to ease her mind of anxiety 
 in that direction, at least for the time being, 
 and the lad's simplicity itself continued to 
 disarm her suspicions. He was very much 
 taken by the French lady's charm of manner 
 and grace of pose, by that nameless elegance 
 of the Parisian which blends form and speech 
 and movement in one harmonious whole. 
 He showed his admiration, and talked of it, 
 as any boy might do. He compared the 
 vicomtesse and Dorothy in his aunt's presence 
 — he was always comparing them ; and he
 
 UN abb£ a marier. 177 
 
 pointed out to her how he admired the former 
 lady and how he — loved Dorothy, '' don't 
 you see ? It is quite a different feeling, Tante 
 Suze. I can't help seeing what a beautiful 
 woman Madame de Mongelas is. I — I — 
 admire Kothen Castle, tante ; but I live in 
 the cottage." 
 
 Of course. Suzanna smiled on the loves of 
 the young pair. It was the desire of her life 
 to see them united, and she now beheld that 
 desire approaching its fulfilment. Dorothy 
 had more money than Arnout, but it was not 
 the money which largely influenced Miss 
 Varelkamp, though she quietly rejoiced to 
 think he would never know, as she knew it, 
 what the struggle of genteel poverty meant. 
 She had known the Donselaars all her life — 
 she had once known Mynheer van Donse- 
 laar very intimately — she loved Dorothy as 
 a daughter. She deemed her almost worthy 
 of young Arnout's heart and hand. 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 She smiled to think of her first foolish 
 anxiety concerning that young gentleman's 
 affections. As she watched the fair invalid 
 lying among her cushions and her laces, 
 a mass of flowered silks and soft perfumes, 
 Miss Varelkamp felt that to connect her 
 charms with the future of a theological 
 student was a wilful leap Into romance. She 
 felt, moreover, that It was an Insult to the 
 steady boy who had never given her cause 
 to doubt him. That very consciousness 
 drove her, perhaps, in her strict sense of 
 justice, to another extreme of aggressive 
 trustfulness. She had no appreciation of 
 romance In any form ; she knew neither the 
 name nor the thing. Romance ? People 
 used to sing foolish untrue songs in her 
 youth called " romances " ; they did not do so 
 any more. The Bible was all matter-of-fact, 
 and the provincial Cottrant was all matter- 
 of-fact (poor old lady !), and the missionary
 
 UN ABBE A MARIER. I 79 
 
 reports were all matter-of-fact. The only 
 unrealities she ever met with on paper were 
 the inaccuracies in her butcher's bills. And 
 she "spotted" those with wonderful quick- 
 ness. True enough, the bills were not over 
 long. They did not eat meat every day at 
 the cottage — at least, not when Arnout was 
 away. 
 
 Madame de Mongelas was contented to 
 stay on. She had been travelling through 
 Holland, it appeared, when the accident 
 befell her, and had taken a carriage from 
 Overstad on that day, to drive round the 
 neighbouring villages, a favourite tour with 
 visitors to the town. She had no particular 
 reason to regret the delay. There was 
 nothing to recall her to her home in Paris. 
 ** Mon chez-moi," she said bitterly, " eh, ce 
 n'est pas gai d'etre toujours seule. Nous 
 autres femmes, nous preferons un chez-nous." 
 She was the widow of a French officer, much
 
 l8o AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 older than herself, who had fallen **au 
 Tonkin," far away among the Chinese. She 
 had enough to " exist " upon, she said, 
 " enough not to die of hunger where the 
 appetite Is small." That was all the Varel- 
 kamps knew about her. She talked constantly 
 of herself, but very rarely of her circumstances. 
 Judging by her tastes in all matters con- 
 cerning the wardrobe or the dinner-table, her 
 appetite for the bare means of existence 
 would have satiated a regiment of Miss 
 Varelkamps. 
 
 This was one of the reasons why the 
 Widow Barsselius ceaselesslv uro:ed that the 
 patient should be transferred to the widow's 
 substantial house in town. There she could 
 have much better care and nourishment, and 
 all the luxuries she had been accustomed to. 
 She frankly told Madame de Mongelas that 
 her sister Varelkamp could not afford to 
 keep her. She told her in Suzanna's
 
 UN ABBE A MARIER. l8l 
 
 presence, out of kindness to Suzanna, and 
 that there might be no mistake about the 
 matter. " I Hke simple, straightforward 
 intercourse," she said, " and plenty of it. 
 And I tell you openly, Madame la Vicomtesse, 
 that there's not butter enough in this house 
 for two, let alone for three. Now, at my 
 table you can have as much sweet-stuff as 
 you like, and the ladies of your nation cannot 
 live without 'confitures.' Come to me. I 
 will fetch you in a comfortable carriage. I 
 don't mind the expense." 
 
 But Madam^e de Momgelas softly said she 
 preferred the butter of " la Xante Suze," and 
 so she stayed and contentedly ate the jam 
 which that lady unwearyingly prepared for her. 
 ''You must know what you do," remarked 
 the fat widow spitefully, going off in a huff. 
 ** It's no business of mine. My relations 
 will have my money when I die, if I choose 
 to leave it them. But they'll have none of
 
 1 82 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 it before that time, and I'm In no hurry to go. 
 So don't you make debts on the strength of 
 that, Suzanna." 
 
 This last was a cruel shot, for Mevrouw 
 Barsselius was well aware of her sister's 
 painful scrupulousness. Suzanna had never 
 owed any man anything, no, nor woman either, 
 least of all the Widow Barsselius. But the 
 fat lady was very much put out. She wrote 
 several epistles to the vicomtesse, describing 
 the superior conveniences of her establish- 
 ment. It was the " vicomtesse," the 
 foreigner, the Roman Catholic that attracted 
 her — all the things, in a word, which repelled 
 Suzanna. But matters standing thus, and 
 the stranger strongly expressing her desire 
 to continue the massage at Wyk, Juffrouw 
 Varelkamp decided, with a pride which was 
 all her own, that her guest must stay as 
 long as she chose. She communicated this 
 resolve to her sister, and the fat widow
 
 UN ABBt A MARIER. 1 83 
 
 answered by return of post. " You will 
 suffer for your vanity, my dear Suzanna," she 
 wrote, " when you sit next winter without 
 a fire. But it has always been your way, 
 with that boy as in all other matters, un- 
 reasonably and unnecessarily to deny your- 
 self. I believe you like it. Some people 
 do. Their one pleasure is to have as few 
 pleasures as possible. I send you my best 
 washes for the success of your scheme, and 
 a bottle of preserved peaches for the invalid. 
 Your affectionate sister, Annamaria Bars- 
 selius. P.S. — The peaches are of the very 
 best quality, as they can only be procured at 
 my grocer's. The price of a bottle is two 
 guilders thirty-five. Don't you think that is 
 very dear ? " 
 
 Suzanna sighed. Most things were expen- 
 sive to her, but it was not the expensiveness 
 of superfluities that caused her wakeful 
 nights. *' Afy sister sends you these peaches,"
 
 184 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 she said to Madame de Mongelas. '' I hope 
 you will like them. And my sister asked 
 me the other day whether she should order 
 some champagne. I told her I would ask 
 you if you drank it." 
 
 " J 'adore le champagne," said Madame de 
 Mongelas, '' but I can do without it. I love 
 all good things, dear mademoiselle, except 
 going to confession, and I dislike that 
 because it is so awkward having nothing to 
 confess." 
 
 Miss Suzanna did not understand. Her 
 French was very, very rusty, and Arnout 
 had often to act as interpreter between the 
 two ladies. He was making progress, the 
 vicomtesse assured him. " You do not 
 gallop, as yet, mon cher, but at least you 
 have learnt to trot." And whenever he came 
 a cropper, she would clap her hands and cry, 
 " A fall ! A fall ! " Arnout thought she 
 might have been less merciless in her correc-
 
 UN ABBE A MARIER. 1 85 
 
 tions. But he talked on all the same, with 
 Spartan fortitude. '' It is so useful, tante, 
 you know," he said to his aunt. "Just think 
 what a grand opportunity. Whatever she 
 costs you to keep, she saves us in French 
 lessons. It is absolutely necessary to learn 
 French, Aunt Suzanna." " I cannot say I see 
 the necessity," said Aunt Suzanna; ''there 
 are more bad books than orood ones written 
 
 o 
 
 in French ; and, any way, both get translated, 
 and it don't strike me you pick out the good!' 
 
 This last was a straight shot, for Arnout 
 had returned to his aunt uncut a French 
 missionary report which she had thrust upon 
 his notice, as counterweis^ht to the books he 
 saw in the viscountess's room. The honest 
 fellow had not had the cunning to cut the 
 leaves. 
 
 '* Calvin was a Frenchman," he said, to 
 make a diversion. 
 
 ''He was," said Suzanna, " and our Saviour
 
 1 86 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 was a Jew — Lord forgive me the comparison, 
 but I can't help thinking the two were given 
 to each nation to restore the balance, just as 
 the righteous men . were counted up in 
 Sodom. Do you think, Jakob, that It's our 
 Christian duty to love the French ? As for 
 the Jews — no, I can't." 
 
 The young minister had been standing at 
 the window, looking dreamily out. In all 
 theoretical matters of conscience, as he knew 
 by long experience, Suzanna invariably 
 appealed to the " Domilne." The practical 
 ones she settled for herself without any 
 clerical assistance. He wondered quietly, 
 with an amused smile, whether Arnout would 
 take his place as soon as he obtained his 
 degree. 
 
 *' Not on account of Calvin," he answered ; 
 " rather the other extreme, I should say. 
 Besides, Calvin was hardly a Frenchman, 
 Miss Suzanna."
 
 UN ABBt A MARIER. tS/ 
 
 "Calvin was an apple," burst In young 
 Arnout flippantly — the Dutch call Calville 
 apples " Calvins " — '' he was the apple of 
 discord that turned Eve out of Paradise, and 
 we haven't digested him yet." 
 
 "Arnout!" cried Aunt Suzanna in her 
 most wrathful voice. He shrank back a 
 little ; already he repented him of his temerity. 
 " This comes of daily intercourse with 
 frivolous Frenchwomen and idolatrous 
 papists ! You, a son of the Reformed 
 Church, soon to be one of her teachers ! Oh, 
 Arnout " — her harsh voice faltered just the 
 merest trifle — " you would not have said that 
 a month ago." She got up and left the room, 
 without another look at her penitent nephew. 
 His careless blow had gone straight to her 
 heart. 
 
 " You see, Arnout," said Jakob, with a 
 slight tinge of colour on his delicate cheek ; 
 " some of us old-fashioned people are still
 
 1 88 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 like that. We can't help it. We have our 
 Httle weaknesses of veneration still. They 
 are small — it is touching to see how they go 
 on decreasing — but they still exist, and they 
 modestly hide away in little sanctuaries of 
 their own. But when people rush into the 
 Holy of Holies and write up * Cleanliness is 
 next to Godliness. Buy Pears' Soap,' we 
 object. I know it is backward in us, and 
 that makes us all the more sensitive. People 
 didn't apologise for their religion three 
 hundred years ago." 
 
 '' I won't be sneered at, Jakob," said 
 Arnout hotly. '' You're as flippant as I am, 
 if it comes to that. You're always laughing 
 at religion, only you laugh at other people's 
 religion, instead of at your own. There's 
 more real earnestness, I should say, in facing 
 one's own follies than in satirising other 
 men's." 
 
 " Earnestness," answered Jakob. '' Is it
 
 UN abb£ a MARIER. 1 89 
 
 earnestness you are in search of ? That 
 alters the matter. Religion, my friend, is 
 not a matter of comparisons, as most people 
 appear to think. It is the one thing on 
 earth which is not comparable, because it is 
 the one thlno- which is absolute." 
 
 '' Don't grow philosophic, Jakob. You 
 know Madame de Mongelas calls you my 
 philosophic friend, ' as philosophic as if he 
 were not pious, and as pious as if he were 
 not philosophic' She gave me a fine defi- 
 nition of philosophy the other day, which 
 is about the most philosophic thing I ever 
 heard in my life. ' The intentional per- 
 version of a terminology expressly invented 
 for that particular object.' That's your 
 philosophy for you in a nutshell, and this is 
 mine." He flipped his finger against a full- 
 blown rose which was standing on the table. 
 The leaves fell out under his touch. 
 
 *' I mean," said Jakob, turning timidly
 
 1 90 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 away to the window, '' that my reHgion is 
 not your rehgion, and that your rehgion is 
 not my reHgion. And that nobody but you 
 can know whether your reHgion satisfies your 
 heart." 
 
 There was silence between them for a 
 moment. Said Jakob softly : '' Your philo- 
 sophy, at any rate, is of a transient nature. 
 See, your rose has already lost its leaves." 
 
 " My religion," cried Arnout passionately, 
 *' is that of all men. And of none. Did 
 I want to study theology ? Am I to be 
 better than everybody else because I did so ? 
 Candidate of the Holy Gospel ! Minister of 
 the Word of God ! Am I responsible for the 
 insolent titles ? Yes, I am candidate of the 
 Holy Gospel. I am so because I learned 
 a little Hebrew and a lot of Church History. 
 I very nearly missed being it, because I did 
 not know quite sufficient Hebrew, but I was 
 so well up in dead men's heresies, that they
 
 UN ABBE A MARIER. I9I 
 
 felt I must be fit to stand up as teacher of 
 my own. If I only learn now thoroughly 
 how they elect the Synod and the sub- 
 committees, they will make me a servant of 
 the Church and a minister of God, or is it 
 a minister of the Church and a servant of 
 God ? It seems the two can go together, 
 even nowadays. That is my religion. It 
 don't affect my life, you see, — any more than 
 anybody else's. It is a matter of church- 
 membership." 
 
 '' Poor Arnout ! " said Jakob still more 
 softly. 
 
 " On the contrary, I am not to be pitied. 
 I am to be praised. By hard work and 
 strenuous effort — three years of student life, 
 including wines and college fees — I shall 
 raise myself to a pitch of holiness above my 
 fellows. Above them by the full height of 
 the pulpit-stairs. They will neither preach 
 nor practise. I, at least, though I do not
 
 192 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 practise, shall tell them In my preaching 
 that they ought to. And when everybody 
 has called me ' Right Reverend ' for a couple 
 of years, I shall probably begin to believe 
 them. You clergymen always increase in 
 self-reverence. It is a beautiful proof of the 
 hallowing influence of the trade. Who knows 
 how respectable I may find myself In time ! " 
 
 " Poor Arnout ! " said Jakob for the second 
 time. His eyes grew troubled and moist. 
 He was a weakly creature, you see, in 
 constant bad health. He could not help 
 himself. Arnout saw It, but he turned away 
 resolutely and went on. 
 
 " Very pleasant, Isn't it ? To know that 
 you can go on studying and preaching, and 
 that you needn't believe it's really meant. 
 Fancy a religion au pied de la lettre. ' Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart and with all thy soul. Be ye holy,' — 
 holy, mind you— ' even as I am holy.' Holy
 
 UN abb£ a marier, 193 
 
 — holy." His voice had dropped. He 
 spoke the last words very slowly, and then 
 stopped. 
 
 In the livinor silence that filled the little 
 room, a few more rose-leaves, slowly detach- 
 ing themselves, fell on the table with a gentle 
 thud. 
 
 " Oh, Jakob," he cried, '' I do love what is 
 good and pure and righteous. I do love — 
 God. Oh, my God, my God ! " 
 
 There was a despair in his voice that rang 
 through the solemn words. Without another 
 look at those sad eyes beside him, he rushed 
 out of the room. 
 
 Jakob remained standing where he stood. 
 His look was uplifted towards the full glory 
 of the midday sun. And his lips moved 
 faintly now and then, as if in prayer. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 
 
 SuzANNA felt she must think the whole 
 matter over, but for the moment she was not 
 at liberty to do so. Until madame's luncheon 
 was ready, the duties of the kitchen demanded 
 her hostess's undivided attention. And so 
 Suzanna returned to her stove. On this day 
 of all others she was particularly anxious to 
 achieve success, for — the invalid having com- 
 plained of a falling away of appetite — she had 
 leaped boldly into extravagance and had 
 actually purchased a fat little pigeon for 
 the lady's special delectation. This costly 
 acquisition, procured and prepared with 
 almost reverential care, had been placed by
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. I 95 
 
 Miss Varelkamp's own hands in the roasting- 
 pan, Betje looking on the while with amaze- 
 ment very nearly akin to awe. Betje had 
 now lived more than thirty years with 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp, but she had not 
 learned how to roast pigeons. 
 
 The precious bird was frizzling in the oven, 
 beautiful in death, the ruddy brown of Its 
 fragrant breast a-sparkle with luscious bubbles. 
 Very tenderly Miss Varelkamp lifted it forth 
 at the right moment and placed It on a snow- 
 white dish. She could not help thinking 
 regretfully, as she gazed upon it, how very 
 small It was for eleven pence, but she 
 repressed the thought immediately as un- 
 generous, and carried her offering unhesi- 
 tatingly upstairs. Madame de Mongelas had 
 said she was not hungry, and would be quite 
 content with a couple of poached eggs or an 
 omelet. Suzanna recalled this to her mind 
 with a grim smile of satisfaction, as she
 
 196 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 paused on the landing. What would Madame 
 de Mongelas say to so luxurious a feast ? 
 
 The more she felt it to be her unpalatable 
 duty to afford the sick stranger such hospi- 
 tality as was in her power, the more anxious 
 she became to do well and ungrudgingly 
 what she had undertaken. Perhaps Madame 
 de Mongelas would have experienced a little 
 less punctilious kindness, had Miss Varel- 
 kamp been a little less conscious of dislike 
 and distrust. She wished her visitor to go, 
 and therefore she set to making her unreason- 
 ably comfortable. She disliked her ex- 
 cessively, and therefore she bade her stay as 
 long as she wished. In all this there was 
 nothing akin to hypocrisy — we have seen 
 sufficiently that Miss Varelkamp was ever 
 the most truthful of women — there was only 
 the stern resolve to be just and the fear of 
 injustice which often overpowered all her 
 other faculties of reasoning. It was when
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 1 97 
 
 she considered herself wrong, not when she 
 considered herself right, that Miss Varelkamp 
 became soonest unreasonable. 
 
 She went into the room with her tray. 
 
 ** You are too good, my dear mademoiselle," 
 said the vicomtesse languidly — she said it 
 twenty times a day, but she never seriously 
 attempted to check the superfluity she com- 
 plained of. "You are too good, and you 
 give yourself far too much trouble. You and 
 your amiable nephew are quite spoiling me 
 for my solitary life. I do not demand 
 delicacies, dear Miss Suzanna; I should be 
 happy with the humblest, where in your 
 house the humblest is of the best." 
 
 **What will she say when she sees the 
 pigeon ? " thought Suzanna. She was in 
 a flutter to reveal it, but she did not care 
 a single stiver for the Frenchwoman's praise 
 or approval. ''She flatters," she said, ''and 
 therefore she lies." She was quite incapable
 
 igS AN OLD maid's love. 
 
 of appreciating at its sterling value madame's 
 form of continuous courtesy. When she 
 understood her words, she misunderstood 
 her meaning. 
 
 She lifted the cover, and then she turned 
 towards her guest. Madame de Mongelas 
 was gazing out of window, watching with 
 intensest interest a swallow that had got 
 entangled in the broken branches of a tree 
 over the way. Her whole frame was a-tingle 
 with excitement. She bent forward, her eyes 
 dilated, stretching out her hands as if she 
 would help the bird in its efforts to struggle 
 free. " Oh, you must save it," she said, 
 *' Oh, mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! What a horror ! 
 He will not do it. He cannot. Ah, save 
 him, mademoiselle ! " 
 
 " What is the matter ? " asked Suzanna 
 tartly, standing dish-cover in hand. 
 
 *'0h, the bird yonder in the tree," cried 
 madame, excitedly pointing. *' Oh, how he
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. I 99 
 
 Struggles. He makes pity to behold." She 
 threw herself to and fro on her couch. " You 
 must save him, mademoiselle," she repeated ; 
 " you must save him ! " 
 
 " You do not expect me at my age, I 
 presume," rejoined Suzanna, *' to climb up to 
 the top of that tree to deliver a bird. If you 
 do, perhaps my rheumatism may excuse me, 
 Madame de Mongelas." She spoke a little 
 spitefully. 
 
 Madame de Mongelas barely heeded her. 
 ''No, not that," she said thoughtfully; "yet 
 your nephew might. Oh, what a good idea ! 
 Call to him, mademoiselle ; bid him to rush 
 down immediately. Quick, quick ; there is no 
 time to lose. He will do it. He is brave, 
 and he has a tender heart ! " 
 
 " I shall certainly not send my nephew on 
 any fresh wild-goose chase," said Suzanna 
 very angrily. "He engages in enough 
 already on his own account."
 
 200 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 An Ugly light flashed through the French- 
 woman's eyes. " The bird is a swallow," she 
 said. " Your nephew will never chase geese ; 
 he flies at higher game. Ah, if I had him 
 here, I would make him go." She struck her 
 hand on the window-sill as she said the word. 
 Her eyes flashed strength and defiance. 
 Then she quivered back among her cushions. 
 '' Oh, it is horrible I " she said. '' I cannot 
 support the seeing it. Ah, mademoiselle, 
 you have a hard heart. Do you feel nothing 
 for the poor little unfortunate ? " 
 
 " I feel for men and women," said Suzanna. 
 *' I trust you always feel for them, Madame 
 de Mongelas." 
 
 Madame de Mongelas had started up 
 again. She had no thought for anything 
 but the fluttering little existence away 
 yonder, battling for its life. Suddenly she 
 broke into what was almost a shriek of 
 triumph. '' I hear him," she cried, " in the
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 20I 
 
 garden. Go to him, Mademoiselle Suze ! 
 Call to him ! Ah, look at the little prisoner 1 
 He is beginning to flutter again. Monsieur 
 Arnout will rescue him." 
 
 " Peace, woman," said Suzanna in Dutch, 
 setting her teeth hard. 
 
 The Frenchwoman half rose from her 
 couch with a suppressed cry. Then, before 
 Suzanna could realize her intention, she had 
 thrown herself towards the window as best 
 she could, painfully wrenching the already 
 dislocated foot. Whatever one might think 
 of her airs and graces, there was no doubt 
 that this woman could bear bodily suffering. 
 What cared she at the moment ? Her 
 eyes were blazing with passion and fierce 
 resolve. 
 
 *' He shall save it ! " she gasped. 
 
 But Suzanna was too quick for her. The 
 old lady ran round to the window. " You 
 shall not ask him," she said. " He would be
 
 202 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 fool enough to attempt it. He shall not risk 
 his precious life for such a trifle." 
 
 For a moment they faced each other. 
 The grey Dutchwoman, erect and resolute, 
 with one hand on the sash ; the French 
 beauty in her laces, supporting herself with 
 difficulty against the window-curtains, her 
 delicate features distorted with anger and 
 pain. 
 
 They looked into each other s eyes. And 
 each felt that here were powers well matched 
 — eager fury and quiet strength. They 
 recoiled from each other, as he pauses to 
 test his armour who meets a foe worthy of 
 his valour. They recoiled for one moment, 
 each feeling it were best to turn back in 
 time. 
 
 As they stood there, a frightened chirping 
 from the captive found its way across the 
 stillness. He lifted up his voice, as if know- 
 ing that succour was nigh.
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 2O3 
 
 Down In the garden a man's steps were 
 heard pacing to and fro. 
 
 With a passionate blow Madame de 
 Mongelas struck her clenched fist against 
 the window-pane. Once. Twice. The 
 glass came clattering down In great jagged 
 fragments. She pressed her arm against 
 what was left and thrust it out. Her hand 
 was covered with blood. 
 
 " Madame, vous etes fou," cried Suzanna, 
 forgetting all her French in the indignation 
 of the moment. 
 
 " Fou qui gagne ! " shrieked the vicomtesse, 
 hanging out among a fringe of broken pieces. 
 
 Arnout stood in the middle of a o^lltterlnof 
 garden path, looking up In amazement. 
 
 '' Oh, Monsieur Arnold, the little bird 
 yonder ! " She pointed with her bleeding 
 hand. " You must save him. Quick ! He 
 is killing himself." 
 
 He followed the direction she was indl-
 
 204 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 eating. High up in the lofty leafage he 
 could detect an agitated rustle. '' But how 
 can I save it ? " he said, without removino- 
 his hands from his pockets ; '* I have no 
 ladder." 
 
 " A ladder ! " she laughed shrilly ; '' no, nor 
 a stone staircase ! Clel ! Does a man ask 
 how, when there Is a good deed to be done ? 
 The will finds itself wings. If I were a man, 
 I would show you the way ! " 
 
 Arnout looked up gloomily at the great 
 tree rising before him Into Immeasurable 
 blue. He had fled out into the garden, 
 away from Jakob, away from the desperation 
 of his own thoughts. He was in a mood for 
 anything devil-may-care. Up yonder from 
 the still, sunlit foliage broke renewed little 
 agonised cries. Could he reach the dizzy 
 spot ? He was an athlete and a climber. 
 And If he did not, there would be this great 
 advantage : he would not fall, unless he
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 205 
 
 fell from the summit. He would not break 
 his leg, but his head. 
 
 Miss Varelkamp's skinny neck came 
 protruding from the other window. She 
 had thrown up the sash. '' Arnout," she 
 cried in Dutch, '' the creature is crazy. I 
 forbid you — do you understand me — I forbid 
 you to try ! " 
 
 ''And I," said Madame de Mongelas, who 
 caught the meaning more from the accent 
 than the words, '' I have no right to forbid 
 and no need to entreat. I have pointed out 
 the duty, monsieur, and your aunt has pointed 
 out the danger. Faltes." 
 
 '* Here goes," said Arnout ; and he 
 swarmed up the tree. 
 
 The two women stood watching him, each 
 at her window, in the warm sun-laden silence. 
 He went up easily enough at first, up, up, 
 his white flannels maklnor little shinlnor 
 patches between the spreading branches.
 
 206 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 Then he stopped, cautiously, and the 
 watchers felt that the struggle was come. 
 Then up again, very slowly, with long 
 careful pauses and sudden decisions, away 
 into green heights where they could hardly 
 follow the line of his figure, then bending 
 forward, and creeping softly, like some great 
 caterpillar, along a mighty arch across the 
 void. He was coming towards them ; they 
 could see him coiling round the brown line 
 of the overhanging bough — far beneath him 
 the glitter of the cruel gravel path. 
 
 '' Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! " gasped 
 Madame de Mongelas. The words were 
 not a prayer ; they were a cry of exultation 
 and passionate excitement. Suzanna neither 
 spoke nor moved. In her bosom was a 
 tumult of hope and of hate. 
 
 Arrived at the extremity of the bough 
 Arnout once again hesitated. The distressed 
 swallow hung caught in some broken twigs
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 20/ 
 
 above his head — but beyond his reach. 
 Would the branch bear him, even If he could 
 attain to It ? The question of life or death 
 lay there. He crept back again a little to a 
 place on the great arm, on which he could lift 
 himself erect. Then he stood up cautiously 
 and stretched out his hand. The women 
 watched him. Vain movement. The slender 
 bough hung more than a yard beyond him. 
 
 Then suddenly he bent backwards and 
 leaped — leaped into wide space, as a bird 
 might break away — leaped at the frail foliage 
 above him, caught at it, clutched it, and 
 hung swaying to and fro, a white speck in 
 immensity, while with one hand he seized at 
 the swallow, whose rapid cries resounded 
 through the air. 
 
 " Le brave ! " said Madame de Mongelas 
 softly. The bough bore him — at least for 
 a moment — It bent like a bulrush under his 
 weight, and, watching his opportunity as it
 
 2o8 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 sank downwards, he let himself fall on to the 
 larger branch beneath. As he loosened his 
 hold, the fragile branch above him broke off 
 near the stem, with a hissing crash that struck 
 home into the hearts of the hearers. It 
 hung limp and broken, its white wound 
 showing against the weather-beaten trunk. 
 
 Arnout commenced his descent, with the 
 fluttering bird in one hand, pressed lightly 
 against his breast. The lookers-on breathed 
 more freely, yet, in reality, had they known 
 it, this part of the expedition, especially now 
 one hand remained occupied, was in many 
 ways the more dangerous of the two. There 
 came a moment when Arnout, still some 
 feet from the ground, slipped, stumbled, 
 swayed forward 
 
 In that flash of time — clear as distant light- 
 ning — all three realized that, if he let the 
 bird go, his left hand could grasp at a branch 
 near him. He did not move its position on
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 209 
 
 his breast. And with a dull thud he fell to 
 the ground. 
 
 " Est-il possible ? " said Madame de 
 Mongelas, white to the lips. 
 
 Suzanna was already on the stairs and in 
 the garden and by her nephew's side. 
 
 She bent down to lift up his head — oh, so 
 tenderly ! — but he opened his eyes imme- 
 diately. He was only stunned and bruised, 
 not seriously hurt. 
 
 " Thank you, tantetje," he said dreamily, 
 " it is nothing." 
 
 Her manner changed immediately. 
 
 ** Do not thank me, Arnout," she answered ; 
 " thank God that you are not in hell at this 
 moment. I do not ask your thanks. I have 
 seen to-day how you bestow them upon me. 
 Go and claim those of the woman to amuse 
 whom you venture your life." And she left 
 him. 
 
 Arnout got up slowly and shook himself. 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 And then he went upstairs, as his aunt had 
 suggested, with the bird still clasped to his 
 breast. Suzanna watched whether he would 
 go, standing by the dining-room window, 
 where she found Jakob, who had been a 
 silent spectator of the whole scene. 
 
 Madame de Mongelas received her knight 
 with great approbation, pouring praise enough 
 into his ear to confound a more experienced 
 warrior. 
 
 " A woman," she said, *' in my nation — a 
 nation of heroes — can do a man no greater 
 honour than to look into his eyes and say, 
 * Vous etes un brave.' I said it just now, 
 involuntarily, when you sprang out into 
 space. I repeat it, weighing my words. I 
 am a woman like all others. And not 
 because I am myself, but because I am a 
 woman and you are a man, the words were 
 well worth dying for." 
 
 He laid the fris^htened bird in her hand,
 
 THE BEAUTY OF DANGER. 211 
 
 and as she strove to soothe it with the 
 other, he noticed that she, too, was hurt. 
 
 " In the cause of suffering," she said, ''do 
 you think we women dare do nothing ? Ah, 
 mon chevalier, danger is a beautiful thing ! " 
 She avoided his eyes as she said it. And 
 presently she continued, in a lighter tone, 
 " The creature is not injured. You have 
 saved it from a horrible death. Tiens, 
 I'ami ! " She held out her beautiful arm 
 towards the broken window and opened her 
 hand. The bird lay in it for a second, half 
 frightened still. Then he spread out his 
 wings and flew away. 
 
 '* To France," she said, looking dreamily 
 after him, '' and tell them that the sun shines 
 everywhere, and that wherever he shines, 
 the birds build up their nests." 
 
 '' I risked my life to get him for you," said 
 Arnout in an injured voice. 
 
 She turned on him In surprise. *' Not
 
 2 12 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 that," she said. "You risked your Hfe to 
 save him from the most terrible of deaths. 
 And I knew that you would risk it, because 
 you are as brave as you are strong." 
 
 ** I risked it for your sake," he said still 
 moodily. *' I don't care for birds." 
 
 " But I do," she answered quickly, " and 
 I do not believe you. And I restored him 
 the liberty which Is his by right." 
 
 " Liberty!" he repeated bitterly. *'What 
 do you know of liberty, madame ? You only 
 know the tyrant and the slave." 
 
 *' No gallantries ! " she said, laughing. 
 " You have not yet learnt how to say them. 
 It is true that men know little of liberty. It 
 is a privilege of the brutes. We human 
 beings have the higher happiness of sur- 
 render, which is love. But I ? " She 
 
 paused. " Get me some water to wash 
 the blood from my hand," she said. 
 
 And he obeyed her.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 
 
 In the meantime the unfortunate pigeon lay 
 greasing over in its sauce. 
 
 Arnout saw it there when he came back 
 with the water, and he advised madame to 
 commence her neglected lunch. '* Oh, but I 
 cannot," cried that lady, whose interest in 
 the live bird had caused her altogether to 
 overlook the dead one. " It is Friday to-day, 
 my jour maigre ; I cannot eat meat to-day." 
 
 Arnout stared in astonishment. " But I 
 thought you said you didn't care about the 
 priests," he said, " and that they were all 
 commission-agents for places in heaven, and 
 that sort of thing."
 
 2 14 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 " That is possible," she answered quietly, 
 *'but that has nothing to do with 'meagre 
 days.' It would be very unlucky for me to 
 eat meat on Fridays. And perhaps my foot 
 would not get well. I am so sorry," she 
 continued, as he stood irresolute ; " I told 
 your aunt expressly that I was not hungry, 
 and would prefer an egg. For I thought 
 you Huguenots would not understand about 
 fasting. Vrai, monsieur, I must say it. You 
 Huo^uenots have no relisfion. You do 
 nothing. Debarrass me of my pigeon, I 
 implore you. Eat it ; it will do you no 
 harm, I suppose. The holy Peter pays no 
 attention to your doings ; you have an easy 
 time of it — on earth." 
 
 She added the two words very maliciously, 
 and looked askance at him, and grinned — if 
 beauty can grin. 
 
 '' Do you believe this — thing ? " said 
 Arnout.
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 215 
 
 **You are an infidel and do not under- 
 stand. It is most annoying. Your aunt is 
 angry enough with me already. Tell her, 
 for Heaven's sake, that I have eaten her 
 dainty." 
 
 *' A second lie," said Arnout. '' Are lies 
 no harm ? " 
 
 " What do you mean, mon cher ? " She 
 opened her big eyes wide. " You are very 
 rude," she said. 
 
 " You won't eat meat," he continued, " but 
 you don't mind telling lies about it." 
 
 *' But you don't understand," she answered. 
 '' You do not understand at all. L'un serait 
 un peche, I'autre est une politesse. There is 
 no other difference than that." 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for telling me, 
 madame," said Arnout gravely, as he walked 
 out of the room. 
 
 His mind was in a ferment. The morning
 
 2l6 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 had been rich in changes of sentiment. He 
 recalled his aunt's refutation of Betje's 
 ridiculous charge, and the subsequent scene 
 in which Madame de Mongelas had treated 
 him like a child. Then, later on, had come 
 the conversation with Jakob which had 
 stirred up all the latent discontent of his 
 heart. And a few minutes after that, he had 
 faced death for a trifle, an idea — he himself 
 hardly knew what. Why should he not 
 face death ? What did it matter ? 
 
 It was unnatural that he, with his healthy 
 enjoyment of life, should put such a question. 
 If he did so momentarily, it must be because 
 he was passing from one phase into another, 
 and the confusion of the moment over- 
 mastered him. It is when we sink lowest 
 into despair that we leap highest towards 
 new hope. And when the stream of life 
 stagnates for a moment, we cry, beneath its 
 bursting pressure, that it were better still.
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 21/ 
 
 But often, almost before the words have left 
 our lips, it is leaping away again, perhaps 
 beyond its proper bounds, but with fresh 
 strength from the brief delay. Would 
 Arnout Oostrum's life turn to the right ? 
 The answer at that moment hardly lay with 
 him. It seemed to him as if his whole 
 existence was breaking loose from its former 
 well-appointed little channel. The world 
 was much larger, life was much fuller, than 
 he had ever thought. Beyond his little 
 circle loomed in a new horizon — delightful 
 in the haze — the fair world of Paris and 
 things Parisian. For many months he had 
 been wandering away from the neat grooves 
 of his aunt's theology, but he had met with 
 nothing to replace that which was escaping 
 his grasp. Madame de Mongelas found the 
 garden prepared in which to sow the seeds 
 of her easy-going philosophy of contempt. 
 " Nothing is worth admiring or suffering for.
 
 2 15 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 Enjoyment, though unattainable, is the end 
 of existence. A wise man tolerates all 
 opinions and reverences none." 
 
 How easy it would all be, if only we had 
 no passions. Nowadays we might manage 
 to settle with our consciences. But our 
 passions spoil the game — like breaths of 
 wind ao^ainst a house of cards. 
 
 He had fled from Jakob in great wrath 
 with himself No moment could have been 
 better chosen to tempt him to reckless 
 adventure. And when, still fresh from the 
 struggle and the danger, he brought his 
 trophy to the beautiful Frenchwoman and 
 was rewarded by her smile, he realised in 
 the sudden revulsion of feeling, as he had 
 never done before, how great had become 
 her influence over him. The discovery 
 did not in any way startle or distress 
 him. Madame de Mongelas was too brief 
 an episode in his life. In a few days
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 2ig 
 
 she would be gone out of it for ever, 
 and the very last thing she would re- 
 member with anything approaching interest 
 would be the student of theology, Arnout 
 Oostrum. 
 
 He smiled to himself at the thought, and 
 suddenly — for so doth one change of mood 
 beget another — there broke across his heart 
 a wave of recognition of good, pure, sweet 
 Dorothy Donselaar. 
 
 A few days ago he had asked Dorothy to 
 be his wife — some day. He had done so 
 partly, perhaps, from a chivalrous desire to 
 uplift her once for all above his Aunt 
 Barsselius's vulgar banter. It was a very 
 good thing, all the same, and a very sensible 
 one, to have done. Of course he had done 
 it. He loved Dorothy Donselaar. 
 
 He told himself several times that day, 
 with eager repetition, that he loved Dorothy 
 Donselaar.
 
 2 20 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 '* But she goes to-morrow, Jakob," said 
 Mejuffrouw Varelkamp. 
 
 '' Where to ? " asked Jakob dryly. 
 
 " To the inn, or the poorhouse, or ' where 
 the pepper grows.' " 
 
 " Or Mevrouw BarsseHus's ? " suoraested 
 
 oo 
 
 Jakob. For a pious young man and a 
 minister he had a wonderful little weakness 
 for teasing. 
 
 '' Or my sister BarsseHus's," assented 
 Suzanna. 
 
 " Who will make her almost as comfortable 
 as you have done, Miss Suzanna." 
 
 " My sister Barsselius has a large house 
 and two servants. These things do not, in 
 themselves, insure the airin^ of the beds. It 
 is the eye of the mistress which does that. 
 But I have nothing to say with regard to 
 my sister BarsseHus's household arrange- 
 ments." 
 
 '' And you are going to pass Madame de
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 221 
 
 Mongelas on to her after all ? She will be 
 glad of that." 
 
 '* Do yoic want her to remain here, 
 Domine ? " 
 
 " No," said Jakob ; ''but, when she leaves, 
 I want her to <yo for orood and all. That will 
 be, I suppose. In a day or two. It seems to 
 me that Mevrouw^ Barssellus, if she once eets 
 her, will keep her for ever. And I don't 
 want Arnout to pity her. I w^ant him to 
 think you are the injured party, not she." 
 
 '' Good heavens, Jakob," said Suzanna 
 indignantly but anxiously, " you don't mean 
 to tell me you think Arnout need be con- 
 sidered In the matter ! Arnout has nothlnof 
 to do with Madame de Mongelas." 
 
 '' Dear Juffrouw, I did not say he had." 
 
 ** A Frenchwoman — a papist — a woman" 
 of rank — a woman of fashion," cried Suzanna, 
 heaping up the list with unnecessary vehe- 
 mence. "She v.'ould like to see him try It
 
 222 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 on my son. Let him make love to little 
 Dorothy. I am afraid you have not much 
 experience of the world, Jakob." 
 
 '* No, Juffrouw; but I am willing to learn," 
 answered Jakob humbly. He pitied her too 
 sincerely to point out that it was not he who 
 had suggested the possibilities which aroused 
 her indignation. 
 
 " The idea is absurd," continued Suzanna 
 angrily. *' You are as bad as Betje. You 
 have very mistaken ideas of my Arnout. 
 Nobody knows the boy as well as I do. I 
 have watched him day by day for fifteen 
 years. He is the very soul of honour." 
 
 ''That he is," said the minister warmly. 
 
 " Go away now. You are a worthy man, 
 Jakob. But I want you to go away." 
 
 " Like Madame de Mongelas," said Jakob. 
 *' I hope that she is as anxious to please you 
 as I always shall be." And he took up his 
 clerical hat and limped off.
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 223 
 
 ** I have watched him and worked for him 
 and been a mother to him for the last fifteen 
 years," said Suzanna to herself, as she 
 resumed her seat in her faded old green- 
 cushioned chair, *' and when it comes to 
 choosing between my commands and a 
 pretty stranger's caprice, he chooses the 
 stranger. 'Tis not Madame de Mongelas, 
 'tis the pretty face ; any other would do as 
 well, as long as it is a lady. I knew he 
 wouldn't stoop to ruining my kitchen-girl. 
 I know Arnout, inside and outside, like an 
 old glove. Who should know him better 
 than I ? " 
 
 She took up her knitting and made a few 
 stitches. Presently she dropped one. She 
 made half a dozen more, and then she 
 dropped another. What was this ? She had 
 not dropped a stitch In her knitting for 
 years. 
 
 She laid it down, and sat lookino^ out of
 
 2 24 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 the window, without seeing anything. '' It 
 Is In the blood," she said, " and he must 
 marry Dorothy — the sooner the better." 
 
 She was trying to deceive herself, as she 
 had tried to deceive Jakob ; but she was 
 utterly unconscious of any attempt at deceit. 
 It was true that she did not fear any serious 
 complication between her nephew and the 
 foreigner — from Arnout's side the thinof 
 seemed Impossible, from the vicomtesse's 
 ridiculous ; but she was vaguely anxious all 
 the same, and she was Intensely mortified, 
 Insulted, and hurt in the very lowest depth of 
 her deep nature by the humiliation to which 
 Arnout had subjected her. She hated her 
 triumphant rival for it ; the very " rivalry " 
 was a pain beyond endurance. 
 
 She hated the woman. And presently, 
 In her unerring truthfulness, she confessed It 
 to herself. "My God," she whispered, fold- 
 ing her hands upon her lap, "have mercy
 
 THE DANGER OF BEAUTY. 225 
 
 upon me ! I hate her. Can I still hate after 
 more than thirty years ? Do all the prayers 
 and victories go for nothing, and does one 
 feel at sixty all the misery and the wicked- 
 ness of twenty-five ? I know the feeling ; 
 none better than I. I hate her. Had he 
 fallen from the summit, I would have killed 
 her where she stood. I would have killed 
 her. Oh, my God, my God ! " 
 
 She sat on through the hours unheeding. 
 
 Upstairs a light voice was practising yet 
 lighter songs to the notes of a guitar. '' Ce 
 n'est pas un homme ; c'est un amour ! " 
 
 " It's time the French madame had her 
 bouillon, if you'll get out the rusks," remarked 
 Betje, walking into the room after her second 
 ineffectual knock. 
 
 " And the only way to get rid of her," said 
 Suzanna, waking as it were from a dream, 
 " is to keep her in the house for a few days 
 longer, at any rate." 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 suzanna's victories. 
 
 Betje returned from upstairs with an empty 
 cup and a three-cornered note. 
 
 *' She kept me waiting while she wrote it," 
 said Betje, with an aggrieved air, " and you 
 don't tell me she didn't understand me when 
 I told her that my 'cookies' were on the 
 fire." 
 
 Suzanna took the dainty little epistle. Its 
 heavy perfume sickened her. She had never 
 seen perfumed paper before, and she had 
 a vague Idea it must be an Invention of the 
 evil one, to cloud the brains of young 
 simpletons or to drown the smell of brim- 
 stone, perhaps.
 
 SUZAXNAS VICTORIES. 22/ 
 
 Madame de Mongelas wrote, in a round 
 French hand — 
 
 " Dear Mademoiselle, 
 
 "Will you forgive me if I ask you 
 to come up to me for one moment ? It is 
 a favour, but you have accustomed me to 
 favours, until perhaps you will think I grow 
 indiscreet. 
 
 "ViCOMTESSE DE ]\IoXGELAS." 
 
 " Best were never to see her again," 
 thought Suzanna, as the paper fell on her 
 lap. " She will make a fool of me if I go." 
 
 " Well," said Betje, " my dinner is spoilt 
 in any case. I may as w^ell take up your 
 answer, Juffrouw." 
 
 " There is no answer," replied Suzanna. 
 " Go back to your kitchen." 
 
 Betje looked at her mistress attentively, 
 shook her head thoughtfully, and marched 
 out of the room.
 
 2 28 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 " I must be very kind to her," said Suzanna 
 to herself. " I dIsHke her, and unless I am 
 very kind indeed, I am sure to be unjust." 
 And she went upstairs and knocked at 
 Madame de Mongelas s door. 
 
 The vicomtesse half lifted herself from the 
 cushions to welcome her hostess. With 
 a superb movement of entreaty she held out 
 her hand. 
 
 *' Mademoiselle," she said, " I have to 
 confess that I was wrong, and to beg your 
 pardon. I acted under the moment's impres- 
 sion of compassion, and I forgot that what 
 I was endangering was not mine to risk, but 
 yours." 
 
 Suzanna was least of all prepared for 
 this. She did not believe about the com- 
 passion, and therein she wronged Madame 
 de Mongelas. 
 
 ** You have this reason to forgive me," the 
 latter continued, '' that I have proved to you
 
 SUZANNAS VICTORIES. 229 
 
 — once again — that your nephew is a perfect 
 * galant homme,' and a noble heart.'* 
 
 This graceful little speech was unfortu- 
 nate. 
 
 " My nephew, madame," said Suzanna 
 tartly, in the best French she could muster, 
 '' is a student of theology, and should be left 
 in peace to continue his studies." 
 
 Madame de Mongelas coloured. '' Let 
 us understand each other," she said calmly. 
 '' My presence here is disagreeable to you. 
 I have not outstayed my welcome, but I 
 have abused your hospitality. So be it. If 
 you will kindly allow me to remain one night 
 longer, I think I can manage to leave this 
 house to-morrow. I shall always be most 
 truly grateful to you for the extreme kindness 
 you have shown me, mademoiselle." 
 
 " And you will go to Mevrouw Barsselius," 
 said Suzanna bitterly. Oh, the false, the 
 seductive woman ! She found her self-
 
 230 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 imposed duty of amiability beyond her 
 strength. 
 
 Madame de Mongelas smiled. " Ah, how 
 I understand you!" she said. ''No, I will 
 not take refuge with your sister. I will fly 
 for good and all. The wicked fairy shall 
 disappear from the scene. Where ? Ciel, 
 do I know ? An inn — anywhere — where the 
 horrid witches go to. But I have not 
 bewitched your nephew, mademoiselle. He 
 is a noble young fellow. And we must take 
 care that we do not spoil him, neither I 
 nor you." 
 
 " You had better stay," said Suzanna. 
 
 " Do you not want me to go ? " 
 
 •' Yes ; and that is why I wish you to 
 stay." 
 
 " Let us consider, then, neither your 
 preference nor my convenience, but your 
 nephew's welfare. Let us avoid, in the first 
 place, mademoiselle, any semblance of an
 
 SUZANNAS VICTORIES. 231 
 
 unpleasantness between you and me. The 
 doctor comes to-morrow. I will ask him to 
 say I can be moved on Monday, and I will 
 go to the Catholic Infirmary at Utrecht. 
 Send the boy away in the meantime, if you 
 can, and if you deem it advisable." 
 
 Suzanna felt her heart softening somewhat 
 towards the stranger. 
 
 " You wrong me," continued Madame de 
 Mongelas, turning her limpid eyes towards 
 Suzanna, '' and you wrong your good nephew 
 yet more. You are afraid of ghosts. But 
 you pay me a pretty compliment also, and all 
 women enjoy a compliment from their own 
 sex. Et apres — que voulez-vous ? One can 
 understand. Vous etes sa mere." Suzanna 
 knew herself utterly humbled and ashamed. 
 
 ** I repeat. He is a noble young fellow, 
 and I admire him. I wish him well with all 
 my heart. And if the doctor will let me, I 
 will go quietly on Monday, and we will tell
 
 232 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 your friends in the village that the air was 
 better for me in the town." 
 
 '* You are a better woman than I thought 
 you, madame," said Suzanna bluntly, and 
 then she slunk away. 
 
 The vicomtesse laughed drearily over the 
 compliment. " I have done what I could," 
 she said to herself. " Le bon DIeu can 
 expect no more of me." She took up her 
 novel again. " How tiresome they are, these 
 eternal complications ! As if there were not 
 adulteries enough in real life ! " 
 
 Suzanna returned to her knitting calmer in 
 heart and more confused in head than when 
 she went upstairs. And now she blundered 
 on to her own defeat. 
 
 Arnout and she had to meet at their five- 
 o'clock dinner. Arnout was very penitent. 
 He could not confess to any wrong-doing, 
 yet he felt that he had caused the dear old
 
 SUZANNAS VICTORIES. 233 
 
 woman the deepest pain, and he strove to 
 show her he was sorry for it. She, on her 
 side, realising that, if he were called upon to 
 choose again,' he would repeat his choice of 
 the morning, she knew not how to receive 
 his advances. They grew silent and uncom- 
 fortable in each other's presence. They had 
 had numerous difficulties before, born out of 
 passing circumstances, and tending towards 
 a foregone conclusion. They had never 
 known separation like this, arising out of an 
 estrangement of hearts. 
 
 " Arnout," said Suzanna bluntly, when the 
 meal was over, " I think you had better go 
 back to Overstad to-morrow. You have 
 been here quite long enough." 
 
 " But term is drawing to a close, aunt," 
 said Arnout, " and, besides, I can work much 
 better at home." 
 
 " Do not lie to me," said Suzanna. " It is 
 Madame de Mongelas who amuses you."
 
 234 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 " Certainly she amuses me, tantetje. She 
 is very amusing." 
 
 " The more reason for you to go. I shall 
 not ask you anything again to-day, Arnout, 
 after this morning. But this is my opinion, 
 and I give it for what it is worth ; you owe 
 it to the woman who has your plighted troth, 
 you owe it to the God whose servant you 
 are preparing to become, to leave this 
 house." 
 
 *' Oh, if you put it like that, Tante Suze," 
 said Arnout, with a shrug of his shoulders, 
 " I will go to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I have gained the victory more easily 
 than I had dared to hope," thought Suzanna. 
 "His heart is in the right place — if only you 
 know how to manage him. And he is very 
 fond of me, after all." 
 
 "Yes, she is a very dangerous woman," 
 said Arnout to himself; "no wonder Tante 
 Suze is afraid of her. And no wonder I am
 
 SUZANNAS VICTORIES. 235 
 
 a little smitten by her charms, as I un- 
 doubtedly am. Even dear old Tante Suze 
 sees It. It Is a fortunate thing I am as g-ood 
 as engaged to Dorothy. But Tante Is right 
 I had much better go."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 
 
 That evening, at nine o' the clock, the 
 virtuous Betje, having washed up the dinner 
 things and. put on her second-best shawl, 
 went out in search of the most beautiful and 
 most miserable thing on earth. She found it 
 exactly where she said she had expected to 
 find it. Nevertheless it must be admitted, 
 between you and me, that if she knew the 
 right spot to look in, she '' went for it " in 
 the most unworkmanlike manner. It was 
 probably out of pure goodness of heart, and 
 not to put too early a stop to even a repre- 
 hensible amusement, that she first scrambled 
 through impassable bushes and tore a great
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 237 
 
 hole in her shawl (the second-best), and lost 
 her way, and fell into a dry ditch, and sat 
 down unexpectedly in a puddle. Perhaps 
 she liked puddles. Perhaps she liked 
 the pursuit of virtue under difficulties. She 
 certainly liked the pursuit — and capture red- 
 handed — of vice. 
 
 Sweet vice was sitting on a rustic bench in 
 the woods, lost among the soft shadows of 
 the summer nii^ht. She was dreaming of 
 things strangely and wildly lovely, of things 
 that are not, except in her fierce fancy or her 
 sorrowful regret, and the reality of ruin and 
 shame, of rags and famine, stood behind her 
 — out of sight. 
 
 Upon her descended Betje with righteous 
 indignation, increased by every moment of 
 delay and every experience of mischance, 
 and she smote her where she sat lost in 
 delicious bewilderment, smote her on a 
 cheek on which the kisses yet lay wet.
 
 238 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 '' D — n !" cried the youth with a tremendous 
 oath, as he started to his feet. 
 
 The wounded damsel gave a simultaneous 
 cry of pain. 
 
 *' Ay, and the two of you ! " cried Betje ; 
 " and a whole bushel of you ! I'm not 
 afraid of you ! Come on ! " 
 
 She struck an attitude of defiance, her 
 bony arms well to the front. For virtue, in 
 this case, was stout and strong, as it might 
 be wished she always were. 
 
 The guilty pair whom she had disturbed 
 were, however, by no means minded to 
 assault her. One of them, in fact — the 
 Adam — remembered that the woods were 
 dark, and whisked round a corner. Where- 
 upon Eve lifted up her voice and wept. 
 
 But the avenger was too quick for him. 
 In a moment she had his head well under 
 her arm and was dragging him back to the 
 scene of his triumphs and his discomfiture.
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 239 
 
 She pulled up his head to the dim light in 
 spite of his struggles. And then, when she 
 recognised him, she let him go, and fell back 
 a pace in surprise. 
 
 ** Mynheer Karel ! " she said in tragedy 
 tones of wrath and indignation. 
 
 She had believed she was dealing with 
 some young groom or shop-boy. Betje had 
 the deepest respect for the gentry, even 
 when they went astray. She was a good deal 
 taken aback by the unexpected discovery. 
 But it increased her anger against the 
 unfortunate little maid. 
 
 "And you'll be telling me, I suppose," 
 she cried, turning on the latter, " that it's 
 marriage you mean ! Oh yes, of course, 
 Mevrouw.* And has Mevrouw any further 
 
 * The married women of the lower and lower-middle 
 classes do not take the style of " Mevrouw " in Holland. 
 There are three degrees — Mevrouw, Juffrouw, and Vrouw. 
 Jufifrouw is also applied to all unmarried women, except 
 those of the higher class, who are called "Freule."
 
 240 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 orders to give ? Lord-a-mercy on us, to 
 think what a whipping I should give you if 
 you were a daughter of mine ! " 
 
 '' Be quiet, you brute ! " said Karel van 
 Donselaar fiercely. Having recovered some- 
 what from his shaking, he felt it was time he 
 should do something. He fumbled in his 
 pocket, produced a rix-dollar, and held it out 
 towards the priestess of virtue. 
 
 She took it and quietly slipped it out of 
 sight. *' That won't buy me a new shawl," 
 she said coolly, " but it'll go some way 
 towards it. A fool and his money are soon 
 parted, if you'll forgive my saying so, 
 Mynheer van Donselaar ; but no amount of 
 rix-dollars will keep me from doing my duty 
 to your worthy father, sir." 
 
 *' Good heavens ! " cried the young libertine 
 in a real funk, ** you don't mean to make us 
 unhappy. My good woman, I assure you, 
 you are utterly mistaken in your suspicions.
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 24 1 
 
 No harm was intended and no harm has 
 been done. I'll never speak to the poor 
 little thing again, if her friends don't approve 
 of it. Good-bye, Cornelie ! " 
 
 Whereupon Eve, driven forth from her 
 little Paradise, once more lifted up her voice 
 and wept. 
 
 "Hold your tongue — slattern!" cried 
 Betje, '' and be thankful on your bended 
 knees if an angel has stopped you in the way. 
 We shall see what Mejuffrouw Varelkamp 
 has to say to your harmless evening amuse- 
 ments. But you, mynheer, unless you want 
 me to speak to your father this evening, you 
 come along quietly with me." 
 
 " Come along with you ? " said Karel in 
 amazement ; "I'll be dashed if I do. What 
 for ? Where to ? " 
 
 "You come along with me," repeated 
 Betje obstinately. " I don't know how to 
 manage young gentlemen like you, and we 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 must find out those who do. As for the 
 girl, leave her to me and Mejuffrouw." 
 
 '' I won't budge a step," answered Karel, 
 *' unless you promise to keep the matter 
 from my father and from everybody else." 
 
 '' Except one person who won't betray 
 you," said Betje. " Done. But you won't 
 keep your foot from stumbling, young sir, if 
 you walk in the dark lanes like this." 
 
 ''I'm glad there's no moon," replied Karel, 
 who was always practical. And, the terms 
 being agreed on, they started. 
 
 Once only Karel broke the silence, as 
 they groped their way back through the 
 little wood. " But what, in Heaven's name, 
 do you want with us ?" he asked. 
 
 " I want your souls," said Betje, with a 
 snap. 
 
 *'Then it seems to me, at any rate, that 
 you might leave our bodies alone," growled 
 young Donselaar.
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 243 
 
 But she clutched at his arm, as If he were 
 trying to escape. 
 
 Arrived at the high-road, they had but 
 a few paces left before reaching the cottage. 
 Ordering Keetje to follow at a little distance, 
 the high-handed avenger whisked the young 
 gentleman into her kitchen and locked him 
 in. Then she went in search of Arnout, 
 whom she found packing his portmanteau. 
 " Jongeheer," she began breathlessly, " that 
 minx, Keetje, has been making love to 
 Mynheer van Donselaar. I caught them at 
 it in the woods. He's in the kitchen. You 
 must tell him not to do it. Tell him all 
 about how wicked it is, and how stupid, and 
 that you never do it. Here is the key." 
 
 And she was gone. She found that, in 
 the meantime, Keetje had run off to her 
 mother's, and so she ran after her. 
 
 Arnout stood staring at the key she had 
 left on the table. '* A pleasant little pig to
 
 244 AN OLD MAID S LOVE. 
 
 wash/' he said, using a famiHar Dutch 
 expression, ''No, thank you." And, then he 
 said, " Dorothy's brother," and went slowly 
 downstairs. He turned the key In the lock 
 very hesitatingly, and walked Into the bright 
 bare kitchen. Karel van Donselaar sat 
 huddled up under the flaring gaslight. 
 
 *' Oostrum," he said, starting up, ''don't 
 preach to me. I won't stand It. You're not 
 a parson yet." He evidently wanted to 
 brave the matter out. 
 
 Said Arnout : " My dear fellow, I don't 
 want to preach to anybody. I know nothing 
 about the business at all." 
 
 " Oh ! " replied Karel, catching at a straw. 
 " I was only joking, you know. ' Theol. 
 Stud.' and all that. I have a note for you 
 from my father somewhere," and he began 
 fumbling In his coat-pocket. " There was 
 nobody about, so I just stepped Into the 
 kitchen."
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 245 
 
 " Through the keyhole ? " said Arnout. 
 He could not bear the other's lying ways. 
 " Karel, what is this about you and my aunt's 
 little maid ? " 
 
 Donselaar dropped his hand from his 
 pocket. '' Then you do know," he said. 
 " It's no business of yours." 
 
 " Yes, it is. Or rather, she is. You've no 
 business to meddle with her." 
 
 *' Oho, is that it ? " said Karel with a leer. 
 ''Well, I've as good a right as you, any day. 
 Why didn't you manage to keep her ? 
 You're too stingy, I fancy. Girls like that 
 want presents, and plenty of them." 
 
 Arnout had been utterly at a loss how to 
 approach the subject. His young friend 
 smoothed the \vay for him. 
 
 " What do you mean, you cad ? " he burst 
 out in a towering rage. " Do you think that 
 everybody else is as dirty a scoundrel as you 
 are ? I touch the wretched little creature —
 
 246 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 I " He could get no further. Young 
 
 Arnout had a fine fountain of temper, if only 
 you touched the proper spring. 
 
 '' Tut-tut," said Karel, half frightened. 
 " She told me you had been her first lover. 
 I can't help it if the little puss tells lies." 
 
 " I haven't looked at her since she was 
 a baby," said Arnout ; '' and, mind you, 
 Donselaar, this is a case of ' hands off.' 
 The sooner you understand that the better. 
 You must give me your word of honour that 
 you will never speak to the poor child 
 again." 
 
 ''Don't you wish you may get it?" said 
 Donselaar. 
 
 " I am not going to preach to you," con- 
 tinued Arnout ; " God knows I am both unfit 
 and unwilling to preach. But I tell you 
 plainly this thing that you are doing is a low 
 thing, a cruel thing. Are there not women 
 enough in the cities of whom you can ask
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 247 
 
 whatsoever you want ? This girl's whole 
 existence is in, your hands. Only a coward 
 would crush it." 
 
 " She should have thought of that before," 
 said Karel. " I didn't ask her to go further 
 than she chose.'' 
 
 " I don't care how far you've gone," cried 
 Oostrum ; " but here you stop. Do you 
 understand me ? Give me your word." 
 
 " No," said Karel sulkily. 
 
 Arnout did not answer immediately. He 
 walked calmly towards the door of the 
 pantry, against which hung a couple of 
 Spanish canes, such as are used for beating 
 out door-mats. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " I'm stronger than 
 you, of course, Donselaar, and I don't want 
 to abuse my strength ; but all I say is, you'd 
 better make up your mind to pass me your 
 word of honour to leave Keetje untouched 
 henceforth, b'efore that clock strikes ten.
 
 248 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 You won't leave this kitchen till you've done 
 it, and you might find yourself the worse for 
 the delay." It wanted five minutes to the 
 hour. Three minutes passed of unbroken 
 silence. Arnout was gazing speculatively at 
 the pantry door ; Karel's eyes wxre fixed 
 on his boots. 
 
 Then said Karel in a dull voice, '' I give 
 you my word. / don't want to touch the 
 little beast." 
 
 *' It is like you," said Arnout indignantly, 
 " first to injure the poor thing and then to 
 insult her. Never mind. T/ia^ is settled. 
 But I warn you, van Donselaar, if ever I 
 find you up to any of these tricks again, 
 I tell Domine te Bakel, and the Domine tells 
 your father." 
 
 *' Tell, tell," sneered Karel. 
 
 *'Yes, I tell," answered Arnout composedly. 
 '' Oh, Donselaar," he went on with a sudden 
 change of voice, *' I'm not going to preach.
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 249 
 
 But, now we are here as men together, think 
 — just think forgone moment — of the misery 
 it means for that poor thing ! Ruin — and 
 what ruin ! Don't do it. Don't do it. 
 Think of your own sister." 
 
 " Let me out," said Karel. 
 
 " I'm going to. Good night." 
 
 Karel stopped as he was passing through 
 the door. " I have got a letter for you from 
 * the old un,' " he said ; *' I don't always tell 
 lies, you see. Here it is." He held out a 
 square envelope by the tips of his fingers. 
 Arnout took It, and they separated without 
 another word. - 
 
 " And why should the poor child not have 
 her little diversions, as long as she takes 
 them innocently ? " cried Keetje's mother, 
 the old lodge-woman. She looked at Betje, 
 and she spoke to Betje. But her remarks 
 were intended for Miss Varelkamp. Keetje
 
 250 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 Stood by, her giddy curls all lank. She 
 cheered up a little when this unexpected 
 view of the case was presented to her. ** Is 
 it to be all work and no play ? " continued 
 the portress. " I suppose you want the child 
 to darn your clothes all night as well as to 
 run your errands all day." 
 
 *' I ? " cried Betje, horrified at the idea. 
 " I wouldn't have her touch my things. You 
 can do as you like, for all I care, Vrouw 
 Janssen. If you're in such a hurry to have 
 grandchildren that bear your name, it's the 
 Juffrouw's business, not mine." 
 
 " Mejuffrouw," said Vrouw Janssen, appeal- 
 ing to her child's mistress, '' strike me dead 
 if there's a word of truth in what she says. 
 Ask the child herself if she's ever done any- 
 thing worse than stop to exchange a few words 
 with the gentleman. She can't help it if 
 people find her pleasing. There's those that 
 never had the chance of knowing how it feels."
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 25 1 
 
 " Stop to exchange a few words with the 
 gentleman," sobbed Cornelia. " Can't help 
 it if people find her pleasing." 
 
 ** Silence, child ! " said Miss Varelkamp 
 sternly. 
 
 ''And let those," cried the mother, "that 
 never sinned themselves cast the first stone 
 at her." 
 
 " Then I'll do it, and willing," interrupted 
 Betje. " I've never had a kiss from a 
 man since my father died and I a babe 
 unborn." 
 
 "Ah," said the old portress, wagging her 
 head, "the men know what's what. It's no 
 fault of yours, mejuffer, I'll be bound, but it's 
 ill fishinor without a bait." 
 
 "Silence," said Miss Varelkamp again with 
 great stateliness. " The girl can go, and 
 there's no more to be said about it. I will 
 pay her her week's wages, and she can bring 
 me back her aprons. Considering the cir-
 
 252 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 cumstances, I will make no deduction for 
 that hole she burned in one of them last 
 Tuesday, as I had threatened to do." 
 
 " Go ! " cried the portress with uplifted 
 hands. "For an innocent 'How-d'ye-do?' 
 to a gentleman she has known as a baby ! 
 You'll think better of it, I am certain, dear 
 Juffrouw " 
 
 '' She can go," interrupted Miss Varelkamp, 
 " and there's an end of it. I will keep no 
 woman in my house for an hour — nor no man 
 either — against whose morality such a charge 
 as this can be rightfully brought. Let them 
 find their fit surroundings elsewhere, but this 
 is no place for them." 
 
 '' Do you mean that — now really ? " per- 
 sisted the portress. 
 
 *' I always mean what I say." 
 
 " Then Lord-a-mercy on you and forgive 
 you your own shortcomings, if you've any, 
 Juffrouw. And I say for one that it's true
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 253 
 
 enough, as I've heard tell, that there's three 
 kinds of human creatures in the world — men, 
 and women, and old maids ; and there were 
 no old maids before the Fall." 
 
 " No," slapped in Betje smartly, " or they'd 
 have told Eve to mind her appetites." 
 
 **God Almighty must decide for the other 
 side," said Juffrouw Varelkamp very solemnly, 
 as she rose and walked towards the door, 
 '* but it's the one sin for which there's no 
 forgiveness on earth, Vrouw Janssen. I am 
 sorry you are not a better girl, Keetje, and 
 I'm sure I wish you well. I'll give you a 
 whole extra florin, if you'll promise me not 
 to wear your pony hair again." 
 
 " We don't want your florins," cried the 
 irate mother, " and if the girl comes to the 
 street, it'll be through your virtue, Miss 
 Varelkamp. Curse your virtue, says I." 
 And she dragged Keetje away from the too 
 carefully white-washed little house.
 
 2 54 AN OLD MAIDS LOVE. 
 
 •* It was very dreadful, Betje," said Miss 
 Varelkamp, wiping her pale forehead, '' bat 
 I'm sure I did riorht. Once that sort of 
 
 o 
 
 thing is in a man or woman, there's no 
 hope for them. The girl is unredeemably 
 lost. I pity her, after a manner; but 
 from the moment we make a concession 
 herCy we — sink — to — the — level — of — the — 
 brutes." 
 
 '' The sins of the fathers " began 
 
 Betje, much impressed by her mistress's 
 solemn manner. But Juffrouw Varelkamp 
 had no patience to listen just now. 
 
 " And who was the guilty man, Betje ? " 
 she asked with unbecoming eagerness. 
 
 " Please, Juffrouw," replied Betje, '' I 
 should like to tell you very much. But 
 I daren't. I promised not to." 
 
 *' Oh, of course, if you promised not to," 
 said Suzanna quickly. 
 
 *' I shouldn't mind so much, only he
 
 THE PURSUIT OF VICE. 
 
 255 
 
 gave me a rlx-dollar towards mending my 
 shawl. So you see I can't break my word, 
 Juffrouw." 
 
 ** I see," said Suzanna.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 arnout's portmanteau remains unpacked. 
 
 " Mynheer, 
 
 " My daughter 'has Informed me, 
 upon her return from Overstad, that you 
 took advantage of her position as a guest of 
 your aunt BarsseHus to make her an offer 
 of marriage. Although I understand that 
 you did not press for an Immediate reply, I 
 consider it more expedient not to delay a 
 decision which requires no further postpone- 
 ment. I beg therefore to inform you, in my 
 daughter's name and my own, that It Is 
 impossible for us — either now or at any 
 future period — to entertain your proposal. 
 You are not, and you will never become.
 
 arnout's portmanteau, etc. 257 
 
 a fit match for Miss van Donselaar. Had 
 you not been conscious of this yourself, you 
 would certainly have cornmunicated with me, 
 instead of with her. I may add, with an 
 eye to the delay you suggested, that my 
 health is excellent, and that, even were it 
 not so, I should be able to rely upon my 
 testamentary arrangements and my daughter's 
 filial affection. 
 
 " I remain, yours, etc., 
 
 " DiEDERIK VAN DoNSELAAR. 
 "Steenevest, Friday morning, 11.30," 
 
 Young Arnout sat in his sky-loft and 
 this letter lay on the table in front of him. 
 He had given up his room downstairs, by- 
 the-by, to make a little sitting-room for 
 Madame de Mongelas. 
 
 The contents of the letter had fallen upon 
 him like a thunderbolt. The comparison 
 is trite, but true — always presuming the 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 thunderbolt to be a little one. The heaven 
 of his hope had seemed, not preternaturally 
 blue, but calm and unclouded ; and the sun, 
 as he thought, had not shown itself unfriendly. 
 So that he was not prepared for the deluge. 
 
 He was not vainer than most young men 
 of twenty. He might almost have been 
 called modest, considering that he must have 
 known — at least in part — what havoc his 
 yellow locks and honest blue eyes had made 
 in the hearts of the young beauties of the 
 village. He knew that people liked him, 
 and he liked them in return. Stern papas 
 and mammas were kind to him, not because 
 he was a good ''parti," but because he was an 
 upright, manly young fellow, with a pleasant 
 smile and a courteous word for the oldest 
 and the ugliest. There was not a young 
 man in the whole province who had learned 
 courtesy in so excellent a school as Arnout 
 Oostrum. And in these days, when the
 
 ARNOUTS PORTMANTEAU, ETC. 259 
 
 rising generation mistake politeness for 
 affectation, the old people dearly enjoyed 
 those old-fashioned " egards " which Arnout 
 had learned from Mejuffrouw Suzanna. 
 
 So he was accustomed to being treated 
 with benevolence. Even pompous old 
 Mynheer van Donselaar had never been 
 especially disagreeable to him, which was 
 saying a good deal. Mynheer van Donse- 
 laar had hitherto enjoyed that tranquil 
 blindness which only full-blown self-conceit 
 can bestow. It had never entered into his 
 head that Miss Varelkamp's boy — nonage, 
 nothing and nobody — would aspire to the 
 hand of Miss Dorothea van Donselaar. 
 
 And, strange to say. Miss Varelkamp, 
 looking at the subject from her point of view, 
 had always considered the match the most 
 natural thine in the world. So had more 
 people in the village ; but, then, people of the 
 village did not speak of such matters to
 
 2 60 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 Mynheer van Donselaar. Mevrouw Bars 
 selius had set her heart on the arrangement 
 — regarding it chiefly as a pecuniary transac- 
 tion — and Arnout had come to think it a 
 very desirable one. He had considered he 
 was acting, if anything, rather handsomely 
 when he vindicated Dorothy's honour before 
 his aunt. He had fancied that she appre- 
 ciated his magnanimity. He had clung in 
 these last days with growing earnestness, 
 almost anxiety, to her steadfast affection — 
 and now 
 
 " ' Had you not been conscious yourself 
 that you are not and never can become a fit 
 
 match for Miss van Donselaar '" He 
 
 coloured over his ears, alone in the bare little 
 room. 
 
 " * My health is excellent, and, even were it 
 
 not so ' " He started up with a muttered 
 
 something that sounded very like an oath. 
 *' Dorothy must repeat that sentence to me,"
 
 arnout's portmanteau, etc. 261 
 
 he thought, " and if she does, then " He 
 
 could not himself have filled up the blank. 
 Chaos unutterable ! 
 
 In the first place, then, he must see 
 Dorothy. Unfortunately he had made an 
 enemy of her brother only half an hour ago. 
 He could not help that. He went down- 
 stairs to tell his aunt Suzanna that he could 
 not leave Overstad before to-morrow evening. 
 
 As he passed the viscountess's open door, 
 she called to him. "We will read no more 
 naughty books," she said, '' but when the 
 post comes in presently you must bring me 
 up my Figaro, and I will sing for you your 
 favourite ' Robert, toi que j'aime.' You are 
 very demode to have such a favourite. But 
 come up early, child, for I feel lonely to- 
 night." 
 
 Madame's nightly pleasure was the arrival 
 of her J^igaro. She rejoiced over it with 
 great rejoicing. She received but few letters ;
 
 262 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 they were sent on to her from the Overstad 
 Poste Restante. 
 
 " Tante," said Arnout to Suzanna, '' I 
 cannot leave for Overstad before to-morrow 
 evening." 
 
 "Indeed!" answered Suzanna, knitting 
 away as if for very life. She disdained to 
 ask his reason. Her heart told her that she 
 knew it. She had been up to Madame de 
 Mongelas a few moments before with a cup 
 of tea, and she had told that lady, not 
 without a certain admixture of spite, that her 
 nephew was going to return to his studies. 
 The Frenchwoman, accustomed to distinguish 
 small shades of expression, had answered 
 very quickly that she regretted his departure, 
 for that Monsieur Arnout was truly charm- 
 ing, but her very reticence had sent Miss 
 Suzanna downstairs with the conviction that 
 she would keep him if she could. 
 
 '* Did you look in on Madame de Mongelas
 
 arnout's portmanteau, etc. 263 
 
 on your way downstairs?" asked Miss 
 Suzanna artlessly. '' Do you know if she 
 wants anything ? " 
 
 " She asked for her paper," replied Arnout. 
 " It must have come. It is very late, nearly 
 half-past ten." 
 
 " A nice conclusion to a well-spent day," 
 said Suzanna bitterly. " There, take it to 
 her, do. It is on the table. Jakob te Bakel 
 tells me it is full of dirty things. Read it 
 together." 
 
 Arnout stood near his aunt. He could 
 not understand her manner. It made him 
 very uncomfortable. And this night of all 
 others he had need of affection. He bent 
 down and took her hand timidly to lift it to 
 his lips. She withdrew it hastily. 
 
 ** Leave me," she said in her harsh voice. 
 *' Good night." 
 
 Her tone offended him, and he ran up 
 angrily to Madame de Mongelas.
 
 264^ AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 " Good boy ! " said that lady, with a sunny 
 smile. " I will sing to you first, to reward you. 
 We have still half an hour before your aunt's 
 bedtime. Do you know that you good 
 people go to sleep just when the great world 
 of Paris, the real world, is waking up ? 
 Allons. ' Robert, toi que j'aime.' It makes 
 me feel fifty at the very least." 
 
 She sang divinely — or so it seemed to him. 
 Never before had he heard such a passion of 
 tears in a human voice. He forgot his 
 troubles as he listened. When the last 
 words had died away, he felt how stupid 
 would be any adjective he could command, 
 and so he merely stammered that there must 
 be other verses yet. 
 
 She cast a radiant glance of approval at 
 him and sang the whole air over again. '' Do 
 you know," she said, *' that you are delicious ? 
 I have been made love to a hundred times — 
 how can we help it, nous autres femmes i^ —
 
 arnout's portmanteau, etc. 265 
 
 but I have never been admired for the sake 
 of admiration only. You are a revelation to 
 me, mon petit chevalier, of a something in 
 woman I did not know existed before. Do 
 you understand me ? " 
 
 " No," he said, troubled in the very depth 
 of his heart. 
 
 *' That is why you are delicious," she 
 answered softly. '* Never understand me. 
 Why are you not a Catholic ? You would 
 have comprehended the Madonna. Shall 
 I sing you one song more ? " 
 
 Miss Varelkamp sat in the room down- 
 stairs. She knitted fast by the light of her 
 white china petroleum lamp. She did not 
 even pause to catch one of her natural 
 enemies, a moth that was fluttering round 
 and round the green shade. Betje had come 
 in and laid down on the table her slate with 
 the list of the day's expenses and the odd
 
 2 66 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 cents that were left. That was always the 
 signal for Miss Varelkamp to open her Bible 
 and read the nightly chapter. Miss Varel- 
 kamp had not looked up. 
 
 She knitted yet faster. Once or twice, at 
 long intervals, a tear rolled leisurely down 
 her yellow cheek. Then she winked her 
 eyelid very rapidly a number of times, but 
 she never stopped her knitting. 
 
 Her thoughts were of Arnout. She was 
 jealous, so be it. But she was deeply hurt 
 and deeply sorrowful. She told herself that 
 she could have given him up to Dorothy 
 — she would show that she could do that 
 — or to any other woman whom he loved. 
 But there could not be a question of even a 
 passing ''entichement" for this Frenchwoman. 
 Only a few hours ago the boy had repeatedly 
 spoken of his engagement to Dorothy. It 
 was merely the viscountess's grace and her 
 beautiful singing and her knowledge of the
 
 arnout's portmanteau, etc. 267 
 
 world that delighted him. And because 
 he enjoyed these, and because she amused 
 him, he cast every wish of his aunt's to 
 the wind. Her heart trembled for the boy. 
 He was worldly ; he loved the world and 
 its pleasures. He was fleshly ; only that 
 morninof he had courted death In fun. He 
 was weak ; a woman's smile could rule 
 him, even when he cared not for the woman. 
 This trouble was not a new one to Suzanna. 
 For the last year or two it had been growing 
 upon her, as she anxiously watched Arnout's 
 career at the University. Many times she 
 had compared him to Jakob te Bakel with 
 a sinking heart. His soul ! his soul ! She, 
 the strong woman, born to act, eager to do 
 something, imperious to impose her will — she 
 felt her powerlessness here. And she struck 
 her impotent yearnings against the rocks until 
 they fell bleeding to the ground. From 
 hope deferred, from prayer unanswered, she
 
 268 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 rebelled against the silent Deity. And 
 unconsciously, while she vainly demanded 
 that her nephew might learn to love Him, 
 the hate of God invaded her heart. 
 
 *' I am very wicked," she repeated to 
 herself this evening. " I wrong Madame 
 de Mongelas, and I know that I do so. She 
 herself has told me that I wrong my own 
 nephew, and she has offered to go of her 
 own account. I am most unjust to them ; 
 I am a selfish, wicked old woman. I have 
 loved him through all these years, but it has 
 always been for my own sake, not for his. 
 Nothing could be more honourable than her 
 treatment of me this morning. And it has 
 barely changed my opinion of her. I break 
 the ninth commandment in my own heart 
 every day — and the tenth." 
 
 She went on with her self-abasement, but 
 it was not of the kind which is so very enjoy- 
 able. Gradually it led her to magnify
 
 arnout's portmanteau, etc. 269 
 
 Madame de Mongelas's virtues till she 
 became inaccurate, as was so often the case, 
 from her anxiety not to be unjust. And she 
 remembered, with a faint glow of pleasure, 
 how implicit she had proved her own trust 
 to be in Arnout's honour only that morning. 
 " Still, I am very glad the woman goes on 
 Monday," she said to herself with a sigh. 
 
 She rang her handbell and read out to 
 Betje with unfaltering voice the grievous 
 complaint of the fifty-fifth Psalm : " ' For it 
 was not an enemy that reproached me ; then 
 I could have borne it : . . . but it was thou, 
 a man mine equal, my guide, and mine 
 acquaintance. . . . The words of his mouth 
 were smoother than butter, but war was in 
 his heart. . . .' " 
 
 She thought the whole contents of the 
 Psalm so remarkably appropriate to the 
 couple upstairs, that she felt it her duty to 
 say at the close, '' Let us apply these warnings
 
 270 AN OLD maid's LOVE. 
 
 to our own hearts, Betje, and not to those of 
 others." 
 
 '' Yes, indeed," said Betje. " ' He shall not 
 suffer the righteous to be moved.' And I do 
 hope you'll sleep, Juffrouw, in spite of all 
 your troubles, which are manifold : though 
 I don't doubt you won't. Good night." 
 
 Juffrouw Varelkamp stood on the landing 
 for several minutes irresolute. She wanted to 
 interrupt the singing, and she was too proud 
 to do it. At last she shook her head and 
 opened her bedroom door. It was past 
 eleven when Arnout went up to his room, 
 still humminor a tune. 
 
 Then the humming stopped. There lay 
 Mynheer van Donselaar's envelope on the 
 table. The envelope recalled the letter, hid 
 away in his pocket-book. Had he forgotten 
 the letter? No. 
 
 Yet suddenly in his firmament the golden 
 glow was gone.
 
 ARNOUTS PORTMANTEAU, ETC. 271 
 
 " I must see Dorothy to-morrow," he said 
 to himself ; '' and I must hear from her own 
 lips that she won't have me. I can't believe 
 it. Oh, Dorothy ! Dorothy ! Grace, grace 
 pour toi-meme — et pour moi." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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