“You seem to think me very clever,” she said.

“Of course,” he answered simply, “you are clever.”

“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.”

Julia bit her lip; she had never before expressed her opinion of Bach, and she did not feel in the least gratified that he had found it out for himself.

“It is absurd to call me clever,” she said.  “I have little learning and no accomplishments.  I cannot even get on with the crochet work Denah showed me, and I do not know how to make flowers of paper.”

“But why should one make flowers of paper?” he asked, in his serious way.  “They are not at all beautiful.”

“Denah makes them beautifully,” she answered.

The argument did not seem to carry weight, but Julia advanced no other; she thought silence the wisest course.  They had almost reached home now; a little before they came to the gate, Joost opened the subject of herself again.  “I think sometimes you must make fun of us; do you not sometimes in your heart laugh just a little bit?”

“I laugh at everything sometimes,” she said; “myself most of all.  Do you never laugh at yourself?  I expect not; you are very serious.  I will tell you what it is like:  a little goblin comes out of your head and stands in front of you; the goblin is you, a sort of you; the other part, the part people know, sits opposite, and the goblin laughs at it because it sees how ridiculous the other is, how grotesque and how futile.  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.  For a moment she blushed, too, then she recovered herself and grew impatient with one so artificial—­and yet so simple, so self-conscious—­and yet so unconscious, so desperately stupid—­and yet so uncomfortably clear-sighted.

CHAPTER V

THE EXCURSION

The following Monday was fine and warm, and since the whole previous week had also been fine and warm, Mevrouw thought they might venture to make the talked-of excursion.  Messages were accordingly sent to the Snieders, and from the Snieders back again, and after a wonderful amount of talk and arranging, everything was settled.  Dinner was a little early that day, and a little hurried, though, since the carriage was not to come till after five o’clock, there was perhaps not much need for that.  However, it is not every day in the week one makes an excursion, so naturally things cannot be expected to go quite as usual when such an event occurs.