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"Have you hurt yourself?" he asked. "No, Mijnheer, nothing," Julia answered; "only a little my knees and elbows." Had she been playing Othello, though she might not have blacked herself all over, it is certain she would have carried the black a long way below high water mark. This was no painless stage stumble, but one with real bruises and a real thud.
The words were for him alone, since Mijnheer was now reading, and also knew nothing of the subject. The smile brightened on his face. "Did it?" he answered. "I am very glad. They must have missed you much, and thought often of you." Julia nodded. Chèrie had said.
Mijnheer was firmly of this opinion, although, now that a question about it had been suggested to him, he wished he had made sure before the girl left. Of course, her plans and destination were no business of his she might even have refused to give information about them on that account; he had dismissed her in disgrace, what she did next was not his concern.
She looked suspiciously at the English girl, her eyes were shining and sparkling like stars; they were full of alert interest and half-suppressed mischief. She looked at everything, and overlooked nothing, though she was talking to Mijnheer in a soft, purring voice, that was full of fun and wickedness.
Mijnheer, by her request, had put on his best coat, but he still had his spectacles pushed upon his forehead, as they always were when he was disturbed in the office. There was a formal greeting one never dispensed with that in Holland, then Mijnheer said, "You are, I suppose, a friend of Miss Polkington's father?"
But her business there did not take long and she was home again, as she intended, before Mevrouw got back from the Snieders. But she had not been in much more than five minutes before the old lady, supported by Vrouw Snieder and Denah, arrived. Mijnheer came home not long after, and, hearing news of the return of the truant, went to the house to join the others.
The Captain also wrote; his point of view was rather different, but his letter filled up gaps in Chèrie's information, and Julia's own past experience filled up the remaining gaps in both. The letters came on Tuesday, as Julia expected, a little before dinner time; she was still reading them when Mijnheer and his son came in from the office.
Indeed, it is not fit that you should be up; the house is like a cellar this evening." Mijnheer did not suggest the remedy of a fire; he, too, shared the belief that stoves should not be lighted before the appointed time; he only protested at the idea of bed. "Pooh!" he said. "Make myself an invalid with Joost away! Will you go and nurse my nose, and put plasters on my chest?
With the true rogue's eye for cover, Julia noted the value of its position, and even improved it by moving it a little to the left as she knocked against it in passing. She brought the Schiedam to the table. "Shall I take the cups, Mijnheer?" she asked. "Yes," Van de Greutz answered shortly, resenting the interruption, "and go to the devil. As I was saying, it is very unstable."
He called to his wife: "See here," he said, "here is an English miss who would like an English holiday; when the workmen have theirs she shall have hers too, is it not so?" Mevrouw nodded, laughing. "But what will you do with it?" she asked. "I should go out," Julia answered; "if it is fine I should go out all day." "To the fair?" Mijnheer asked.
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