In truth she was very sore and angry, and yet ashamed of herself because it was so.  But things had gone so horribly wrong, and as for Dirk, he was the most exasperating person in the world.  It was owing to his bad management and lack of readiness that her name was coupled with Montalvo’s at every table in Leyden.  And now what did she hear in a note from the Captain himself, sent to make excuses for not having called upon her after the supper party, but that Dirk was going to dine with him that night?  Very well, let him do it; she would know how to pay him back, and if necessary was ready to act up to any situation which he had chosen to create.

Thus thought Lysbeth, stamping her foot with vexation, but all the time her heart was sore.  All the time she knew well enough that she loved Dirk, and, however strange might be his backwardness in speaking out his mind, that he loved her.  And yet she felt as though a river was running between them.  In the beginning it had been a streamlet, but now it was growing to a torrent.  Worse still the Spaniard was upon her bank of the river.

After he had to some extent conquered his shyness and irritation Dirk became aware that he was really enjoying his dinner at Montalvo’s quarters.  There were three guests besides himself, two Spanish officers and a young Netherlander of his own class and age, Brant by name.  He was the only son of a noted and very wealthy goldsmith at The Hague, who had sent him to study certain mysteries of the metal worker’s art under a Leyden jeweller famous for the exquisite beauty of his designs.  The dinner and the service were both of them perfect in style, but better than either proved the conversation, which was of a character that Dirk had never heard at the tables of his own class and people.  Not that there was anything even broad about it, as might perhaps have been expected.  No, it was the talk of highly accomplished and travelled men of the world, who had seen much and been actors in many moving events; men who were not overtrammelled by prejudices, religious or other, and who were above all things desirous of making themselves agreeable and instructive to the stranger within their gates.  The Heer Brant also, who had but just arrived in Leyden, showed himself an able and polished man, one that had been educated more thoroughly than was usual among his class, and who, at the table of his father, the opulent Burgomaster of The Hague, from his youth had associated with all classes and conditions of men.  Indeed it was there that he made the acquaintance of Montalvo, who recognising him in the street had asked him to dinner.

After the dishes were cleared, one of the Spanish officers rose and begged to be excused, pleading some military duty.  When he had saluted his commandant and gone, Montalvo suggested that they should play a game of cards.  This was an invitation which Dirk would have liked to decline, but when it came to the point he did not, for fear of seeming peculiar in the eyes of these brilliant men of the world.