On this same morning Adrian rose late.  The talk at the supper table on the previous night, especially Foy’s coarse, uneducated sarcasm, had ruffled his temper, and when Adrian’s temper was ruffled he generally found it necessary to sleep himself into good humour.  As the bookkeeper of the establishment, for his stepfather had never been able to induce him to take an active part in its work, which in his heart he considered beneath him, Adrian should have been in the office by nine o’clock.  Not having risen before ten, however, nor eaten his breakfast until after eleven, this was clearly impossible.  Then he remembered that here was a good chance of finishing a sonnet, of which the last lines were running in his head.  It chanced that Adrian was a bit of a poet, and, like most poets, he found quiet essential to the art of composition.  Somehow, when Foy was in the house, singing and talking, and that great Frisian brute, Martin, was tramping to and fro, there was never any quiet, for even when he could not hear them, the sense of their presence exasperated his nerves.  So now was his opportunity, especially as his mother was out—­marketing, she said—­but in all probability engaged upon some wretched and risky business connected with the people whom she called martyrs.  Adrian determined to avail himself of it and finish his sonnet.

This took some time.  First, as all true artists know, the Muse must be summoned, and she will rarely arrive under an hour’s appropriate and gloomy contemplation of things in general.  Then, especially in the case of sonnets, rhymes, which are stubborn and remorseless things, must be found and arranged.  The pivot and object of this particular poem was a certain notable Spanish beauty, Isabella d’Ovanda by name.  She was the wife of a decrepit but exceedingly noble Spaniard, who might almost have been her grandfather, and who had been sent as one of a commission appointed by King Philip II. to inquire into certain financial matters connected with the Netherlands.

This grandee, who, as it happened, was a very industrious and conscientious person, among other cities, had visited Leyden in order to assess the value of the Imperial dues and taxes.  The task did not take him long, because the burghers rudely and vehemently declared that under their ancient charter they were free from any Imperial dues or taxes whatsoever, nor could the noble marquis’s arguments move them to a more rational view.  Still, he argued for a week, and during that time his wife, the lovely Isabella, dazzled the women of the town with her costumes and the men with her exceedingly attractive person.

Especially did she dazzle the romantic Adrian; hence the poetry.  On the whole the rhymes went pretty well, though there were difficulties, but with industry he got round them.  Finally the sonnet, a high-flown and very absurd composition, was completed.