to old Mrs. Dercksz and to Aunt Stefanie. … Auntie, I am so happy. Lot is so nice. And he is so clever. I am certain that we shall be very happy. I want to travel a great deal. Lot loves travelling. … There is some talk of our living with Steyn and Ottilie. I don't know what to say. I would rather we were by ourselves. Still, I don't know. I'm very fond of Mamma; and she's Lot's mother after all. But I like harmony around me; and Steyn and she quarrel. I call him Steyn, simply. Meneer is too stiff; and I can't call him Papa. Besides, Lot calls him Steyn too. It's difficult, that sort of household. Steyn himself would think it odd if I called him Papa. … Do you like the hat like this? I'll alter yours to-morrow. Look, it's an absolutely new hat! … I'll go to Grandpapa now. Poor Grandad, so he's had a bad night? … "
She left the door open. Aunt Adèle looked round: the room was lumbered with hat-trimmings. The Beggar Boy smiled in a corner; the medals were studded round the racket, on its pink ribbon; the writing-table was tesselated with squares of note-paper.
"What a litter!" said Aunt Adèle.
She dared not touch the papers, though she would have liked to tidy them: she could not bear to see such a heap of scattered papers and she had to restrain her itching fingers. But she cleared up the hat-trimmings, quickly, and put them away in cardboard boxes. Then she went downstairs, where the maids were turning out the dining-room. Elly, flitting up the stairs, heard the blows beating on an arm-chair, felt them almost on her own back, ran still quicker up the stairs, to the next floor, where Grandpapa's room was. She stopped outside his door, recovered her breath, knocked, opened the door and went in with a calm step:
"How are you this morning, Grandad?"
The old gentleman sat at a knee-hole table, looking in a drawer; he locked it quietly when Elly entered. She went up and kissed him:
"I hear you did not sleep well?"
"No, child, I don't think I slept at all. But Grandad can do without sleep."
Grandpapa Takma was ninety-three: married late in life and his son married late made it possible for him to have a granddaughter of Elly's age. He looked younger, however, much younger, perhaps because he tactfully mingled a seeming indifference to his outward appearance with a really studied care. A thin garland of grey hair still fringed the ivory skull; the clean-shaven face was like a stained parchment, but the mouth, because of the artificial teeth, had retained its young and laughing outline and the eyes were a clear brown, bright and even keen behind his spectacles. His figure was small, slender and slight as a young man's; and a very short jacket hung over his slightly-arched and emaciated back: it was open in front and hung in folds behind. The hands, too large in proportion to the man's short stature, but delicately veined and neatly kept, trembled incessantly; and there was a jerk in the muscles of the neck that twitched the head at intervals. His tone was cheerful and lively, a little too genial not to be forced; and the words came slowly and well-weighed, however simple the things which they expressed. When he sat, he sat upright, on an ordinary chair, never huddled together, as though he were always on his guard; when he walked, he walked briskly, with very short steps of his stiff legs, so as not to betray their rheumatism. He had been an Indian civil servant, ending as a member of the Indian Council, and had been pensioned years ago; his conversation showed that he kept pace with politics, kept pace with colonial matters: he laughed at them, with mild irony. In his intercourse with others, who were always his juniors—for he had no contemporaries save old Mrs. Dercksz, née Dillenhof, who was ninety-seven, and Dr. Roelofsz, eighty-eight—in his intercourse he was kindly and condescending, realizing that the world must seem other to people even of sixty and seventy than it did to him; but the geniality was too great, was sometimes too exuberant not to be assumed and not to make people feel that he never thought as he spoke. He gave the impression of being a diplomatist who, himself always on his guard, was sounding another to find out what he knew. Sometimes, in his bright eyes, a spark shone behind the spectacles, as though he had suddenly been struck by something, a very acute perception; and the jerk of the neck would throw his head on one side, as though he suddenly heard something. His mouth would then distort itself into a laugh and he would hurriedly agree with whomever he was addressing.
What was most striking in him was that quick, tremulous lucidity in so very old a man. It was as though some strange capacity had sharpened his senses so that they remained sound and serviceable, for he still read a great deal, with glasses; he was sharp of hearing; he was particular in the matter of wine, with an unimpaired sense of smell; he could find things in the dark. Only, sometimes, in the midst of a conversation, it was as though an invincible drowsiness overcame him; and his eyes would suddenly stare glassily in front of him and he would fall asleep. They left him alone and had the civility not to let him know it; and, five minutes later, he would wake up, go on talking, oblivious of that momentary unconsciousness. The inward shock with which he had woke was visible to no one.
Elly went to see her grandfather in the morning, always for a minute.
"We are going to pay calls this afternoon," said Elly. "On the family. We have been nowhere yet."
"Not even to Grandmamma."
"We shall go to her first this afternoon. Grandad, we've been engaged three days. And you can't go troubling everybody with your happiness immediately."
"And you are happy, child," Grandpapa began, genially.
"I think so. … "
"I'm sorry I can't keep you with me, you and Lot," he continued, lightly: he sometimes had an airy way of treating serious topics; and his thin voice then lacked emphasis. "But you see, I'm too old for that: a young household grafted on mine! Besides, to live by yourselves is more charming. … Baby, we never talk of money, you and I. As you know, Papa left nothing and he ran through your mother's money, lost it in different businesses in Java; they none of them succeeded. Your poor parents never had any luck. Well, Baby, I'm not a rich man, but I can live like this, on my Mauritskade, because an old man doesn't want much and Aunt Adèle manages things so cleverly. I've worked out that I can give you two hundred guilders a month. But that's all, child, that's all."
"But, Grandad, it's really very handsome. … "
"Well, you can accept it from your grandfather. You're my heiress, after all, though you're not all alone; no, Grandfather has others: kind acquaintances, good friends. … It won't last very long now, child. You won't be rich, for my house is my only luxury. All the rest, as you know, is on an economical scale. But you will have enough, especially later on; and Lot appears to make a good bit. Oh, it's not money that matters to him, child: what matters to him is … is … "
"What, Grandad?"
A drowsiness suddenly overcame the old man. But, in a few minutes, he resumed:
"There is some talk of your living with Steyn. … "
"Yes, but nothing's decided."
"Ottilie is nice, but hot-tempered," said the old gentleman, sunk in thought: he seemed to be thinking of other things, of more important things especially.
"If I do, it will be for Mamma's sake, Grandad, because she is so much attached to Lot. I would rather have my own little house. But we shall travel a good deal in any case. Lot says that he can travel cheaply."
"You might be able to do it, child, with a little tact: live with the Steyns, I mean. Ottilie is certainly very much alone, poor thing. Who knows? Perhaps you would supply a little affection, a little sympathy. … "
His airy voice became softer, fuller, sounded more earnest.
"We shall see, Grandpapa. Will you stay upstairs, or are you coming down to lunch?"
"No, send me something up here. I've not much appetite, I've no appetite. … "
His voice sounded airy again, like the whisper of a breeze.
"It's windy weather; and I think it's going to rain. Are you going out all the same, this afternoon?"
"For a moment, I think. … To Mrs. Dercksz' … "
"To Grandmamma's. … "
"Yes,