At length Adrian wearied of it and departed to the factory with the view of making up his books, which, to tell the truth, had been somewhat neglected of late, to find that here, too, the same confusion reigned.  Instead of attending to his ordinary work, Martin was marching to and fro bearing choice pieces of brassware, which were being packed into crates, and he noticed, for Adrian was an observant young man, that he was not wearing his usual artisan’s dress.  Why, he wondered to himself, should Martin walk about a factory upon a summer’s day clad in his armour of quilted bull’s hide, and wearing his great sword Silence strapped round his middle?  Why, too, should Foy have removed the books and be engaged in going through them with a clerk?  Was he auditing them?  If so, he wished him joy of the job, since to bring them to a satisfactory balance had proved recently quite beyond his own powers.  Not that there was anything wrong with the books, for he, Adrian, had kept them quite honestly according to his very imperfect lights, only things must have been left out, for balance they would not.  Well, on the whole, he was glad, since a man filled with lover’s hopes and fears was in no mood for arithmetical exercises, so, after hanging about for a while, he returned home to dinner.

The meal was late, an unusual occurrence, which annoyed him; moreover, neither his mother nor his stepfather appeared at table.  At length Elsa came in looking pale and worried, and they began to eat, or rather to go through the form of eating, since neither of them seemed to have any appetite.  Nor, as the servant was continually in the room, and as Elsa took her place at one end of the long table while he was at the other, had their tete-a-tete any of the usual advantages.

At last the waiting-woman went away, and, after a few moment’s pause, Elsa rose to follow.  By this time Adrian was desperate.  He would bear it no more; things must be brought to a head.

“Elsa,” he said, in an irritated voice, “everything seems to be very uncomfortable here to-day, there is so much disturbance in the house that one might imagine we were going to shut it up and leave Leyden.”

Elsa looked at him out of the corners of her eyes; probably by this time she had learnt the real cause of the disturbance.

“I am sorry, Heer Adrian,” she said, “but your mother is not very well this morning.”

“Indeed; I only hope she hasn’t caught the plague from the Jansen woman; but that doesn’t account for everybody running about with their hands full, like ants in a broken nest, especially as it is not the time of year when women turn all the furniture upside down and throw the curtains out of the windows in the pretence that they are cleaning them.  However, we are quiet here for a while, so let us talk.”

Elsa became suspicious.  “Your mother wants me, Heer Adrian,” she said, turning towards the door.

“Let her rest, Elsa, let her rest; there is no medicine like sleep for the sick.”