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I have got to explain things, of course, but, as I told you before, I have had some practice at dodging and explaining. I shall reach the Van Heigens' before Denah, so I shall get the first hearing, that's all I want, I can explain beautifully." "You cannot explain me away," Rawson-Clew answered.
Indeed, he began to see that, even if they two could have presented themselves, as they had first intended, to the anxious family before Denah arrived, it was very doubtful if the matter could have been satisfactorily cleared up to a suspicious and prudish Dutch mind.
Everything was rather small, but everywhere very tidy; nothing out of its place or wasted, and nobody hurrying or idling; all were busy, with a small bustling business, as unlike aggressive English idleness as it was unlike the deceptive, leisurely power of English work. Denah and Anna looked out of either side of the carriage, and pointed out things to Julia and the two little girls.
"No, I am not," she returned; "ask your mother; ask Denah Snieder; they do not think me clever. What can I do, except cook? Oh, yes, and speak a few foreign language as you can yourself? I cannot paint, or draw, or sing; I do not understand music; why, when you play Bach, I wish to go out of the room." "That is true," he admitted; "I have felt it."
Nevertheless he agreed to join the party; Denah was quite sure it was entirely on her account. On the morning of the first day of the fair, Julia went into the town to buy cakes to take with her on to-morrow's excursion. She had not changed her mind about that; she was still fully determined to go and spend a long day in the Dunes.
Here it was what they called a country seat, a sort of castellated variety of overgrown chalêt, surrounded by a wonderful garden of blazing flower-beds and emerald lawns, all set round with rows and rows of plants in bright red pots. Or there it was a cemetery, where the peaceful aspect made Denah sentimental, and the beauty of the trees drew Anna's praise.
Mevrouw did not read, she made tea and did crochet work, a strip like Vrouw Snieder's, only yellow instead of red. Julia, it is to be feared, did not try to master the pattern so kindly set right by Denah; she could not resist the breath from the outside world which the papers brought.
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.
Was she not going to have a holiday to-morrow, and was she not going to spend it in company with a man she liked, and in despite of Dutch propriety, which would certainly have been thoroughly and outrageously shocked thereby? Denah knew nothing of the causes at work, but she was not slow to discern the result when she and her father and sister met the Van Heigen party that evening.
He chuckled at the idea, and Julia readily agreed. "I shall be delighted," she said. When Denah came, a little later, it seemed she would be delighted too, although she was not specially asked. But when she heard of the plan, she announced that her father had promised to take Anna and herself, and what could be better than that the parties should join?
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