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During dinner they spoke English for the sake of the Captain and Mr. Gillat; Joost spoke well, if slowly, with a careful and accurate precision. He also observed much, both of outside things, as the fact that Johnny and the Captain cleared the table while Julia sat still, contrary to Dutch custom.
She slopped along in the great galoshes, her back to the lighted house now, her face to the dark barns. There they were, easily accessible, waiting for her. Was she to take one, or was she not? She did not give herself any excuse for taking it, or tell herself that one out of six was not much; or that Joost, could he know the case, would not have grudged her one of his precious bulbs.
"Even those who were wont to rail at science and labour," said one who was present in the camp of Maurice, "declared that the siege would have been a far more arduous undertaking had it not been for those two engineers, Joost Matthes of Alost, and Jacob Kemp of Gorcum.
Almost oppressive came the dry smell of the bulbs to her; very familiar, too, as familiar as the distorted shadows that her lantern made. Together they brought vividly to her mind the first time she went the rounds with Joost the night when she told him she was bad, the worst person he knew.
The stranger was an expert, but Joost seemed to be inspired, and just as the sun appeared he sounded, in broad and solemn harmonies, the hymn of Von Catts: "Now behold, at dawn of day, Pious Dutchmen sing and pray." At that the stranger exclaimed, "Well, that beats the devil!" and striking his foot angrily on the rock, disappeared in a flash of fire like a burst bomb.
He himself would buy it if Joost would not, and if she would not sell it to him then neither of them should have it. And Joost could not, even if he would, explain why and how the paying was so difficult. He used all the arguments he could; indeed, for one of his nature, he spoke with considerable diplomacy.
When service was over and they came out into the sunny street, Mijnheer announced that he was going to see a friend. Julia, of course, must hurry home to set the table for the mid-day coffee drinking, and afterwards prepare for dinner. Joost was going back, likewise, and to her it was so natural a thing they should go together that she never thought about it.
For a moment she understood something of the feelings of the brute mob that throws mud. By this time she had reached the town, though almost without knowing it; so deep was she in her thoughts that she did not see Joost coming towards her. He had been to escort Denah, who had thoughtfully forgotten to provide herself with a cloak; he was now coming back, carrying the wrap his mother had lent her.
My goblin came out into my room last night and laughed and laughed; you would almost have heard him if you had been there." They had reached the gate now, and as Joost held it open for her to pass through, she saw that he had blushed to the ears at the lightly spoken words if he had been in her room last night; the impropriety of them to him was evident.
"Will you wait here until I go to my hotel and get one?" "Sure." Bill Peck limped painfully away. Forty minutes later he returned with a platinum ring set with diamonds and sapphires. "What are they worth?" he demanded. Herman Joost looked the ring over lovingly and appraised it conservatively at twenty-five hundred dollars. "Take it as security for the payment of my check," Peck pleaded.
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