The tone and manner suggested many things, but Anna was a terribly matter-of-fact person, to whom suggestions were nothing.  “Why should she wish it concealed?” she inquired.

“I do not know why,” Denah answered; “that remains to be seen.  As for how I know it, I saw it in her face; when she looked at him her lips became set, and her eyes—­she looked—­” She hesitated for a word, and dropped to the homely, “She looked as if she would bite with annoyance that he should be here.  The expression was gone in a moment; she spoke with an ease and naturalness that was astonishing, even disgusting; but it had been there.  I do not trust her.”

The last was said with great seriousness, and for a little Anna was impressed.  But not for long, she could not accept such evidence as this; in her opinion it was “fancy.”

“You read too many romances,” she said; “your head is full of such things.  I do not believe Miss Julia knew the Englishman, she would not have hidden from us her knowledge if she did; it is not so easy to hide one’s feelings in the flash of an eye, besides there was no reason.  Also”—­this as an afterthought—­“he was a man of good family; you could see at a glance that he was of the aristocracy, while she is a paid companion to Vrouw Van Heigen; she could never before have met him.”

Denah, however, was not convinced; she only repeated darkly, “I mistrust her.”

Julia, in the meantime, was busy with her household duties, talking over the excursion the while with Mevrouw, and helping to detail it to Mijnheer.  At last the table was ready for supper and the coffee made.  Mevrouw sat with her crochet, and Mijnheer opposite her with his paper.  It wanted more than a quarter of an hour to supper time, Julia had been too quick; still it did not matter, the coffee would not hurt standing on the spirit-stove; it stood there half the day.  She had all this time to spare, but she did not fetch her crochet work; she went outside to the veranda.

It was almost dark by this time, as dark as it ever got on these nights; the air was still and warm.  She opened the glass door and went out and sat down on the step.  There was a smell of water in the air, not unpleasant, but quite un-English, and mixed with it a faint smell of flowers, the late blooming bulbs have little scent on the whole; it was more the heavy dew than the flowers themselves which one could smell.  It was very quiet out here; the town, at no time noisy, was some distance away—­so quiet that Julia could hear the ticking of Mr. Gillat’s large watch in her belt.  She pushed it further down; she did not want to hear it.