Van Lieverlee stopped, and, stroking his small, flaxen beard gave Johannes another keen look.
"Do you not really think, Johannes," he proceeded, with significant glances, and in a judicial tone, "do you not think ... h'm ... to put it mildly, that you are rather free and easy?"
"What do you mean?" asked Johannes, looking straight at him, unsuspiciously.
"You are a sly little customer, and you know remarkably well how to conduct yourself; but there is not a bit of need for your troubling yourself about me. I am not one of the narrow-minded, every-day sort of people. Such things are nothing to me—no more than a dry leaf. I only wish you to bear in mind the difficulties. We must not expose our esoteric position. There are too many who understand nothing about it, and would get us into all kinds of difficulties. Countess Dolores, for example, is still very backward in that respect."
Johannes understood next to nothing of this harangue, but he was afraid of being taken for a fool if he let it be evident. So he ventured the remark:
"I will do my best."
Van Lieverlee burst out laughing, and Johannes laughed with him, pleased that he appeared to have said something smart. Thereupon he took his leave, and went to look up Marjon, that they might go to the city of the miners.
III
The walls of the little house were much thicker than those of the houses of Dutch laborers. The small sashes, curtained with white muslin, lay deep in the window-openings, and upon each broad sill stood a flowering plant and a begonia.