In truth, Katherine had grown very weary of the perpetual eulogies which Batavius delivered of everything respectable and conservative.  A kind of stubbornness in evil followed her acceptance of evil.  This time, at least, she was determined to do wrong, whatever the consequences might be.  Batavius and his inflexible propriety irritated her:  she had a rebellious desire to give him little moral shocks; and she deeply resented his constant injunctions to “remember that Joanna’s and his own good name were, in a manner, in her keeping.”

Very disagreeable she thought Batavius had grown, and she also jealously noted the influence he was exercising over Joanna.  There are women who prefer secrecy to honesty, and sin to truthfulness; but Katherine was not one of them.  If it had been possible to see her lover honourably, she would have much preferred it.  She was totally destitute of that contemptible sentimentality which would rather invent difficulties in a love-affair than not have them, but she knew well the storm of reproach and disapproval which would answer any such request; and her thoughts were all bent toward devising some plan which would enable her to leave home early on that morning which she had promised her lover.

But all her little arrangements failed; and it was almost at the last hour of the evening previous, that circumstances offered her a reasonable excuse.  It came through Batavius, who returned home later than usual, bringing with him a great many patterns of damask and figured cloth and stamped leather.  At once he announced his intention of staying at home the next morning in order to have Joanna’s aid in selecting the coverings for their new chairs, and counting up their cost.  He had taken the strips out of his pocket with an air of importance and complaisance; and Katherine, glancing from them to her mother, thought she perceived a fleeting shadow of a feeling very much akin to her own contempt of the man’s pronounced self-satisfaction.  So when supper was over, and the house duties done, she determined to speak to her.  Joris was at a town meeting, and Lysbet did not interfere with the lovers.  Katherine found her standing at an open window, looking thoughtfully into the autumn garden.

“Mijn moeder.”

“Mijn kind.”

“Let me go away with Bram in the morning.  Batavius I cannot bear.  About every chair-cover he will call in the whole house.  The only chair-covers in the world they will be.  Listen, how he will talk:  ’See here, Joanna.  A fine piece is this; ten shillings and sixpence the yard, and good enough for the governor’s house.  But I am a man of some substance,—­Gode zij dank!—­and people will expect that I, who give every Sunday twice to the kirk, should have chairs in accordance.’ Moeder, you know how it will be.  To-morrow I cannot bear him.  Very near quarrelling have we been for a week.”