Van der Spijck threw open the door. "Thy word is an oath!"
On the stairs shone the speckless landlady, a cheerful creature in black cap and white apron, her bodice laced with ornamental green and red ribbons. She gave a cry of joy, and flew to meet him, broom in hand. "Welcome home, Heer Spinoza! How glad the little ones will be when they get back from school! There's a pack of knaves been slandering thee right and left; some of them tried to pump Henri, but we sent them away with fleas in their ears—eh, Henri?"
Henri smiled sheepishly.
"Most pertinacious of all was a party of three—an old man and his daughter and a young man. They came twice, very vexed to find thee away, and feigning to be old friends of thine from Amsterdam; at least not the young man—his lament was to miss the celebrated scholar he had been taken to see. A bushel of questions they asked, but not many pecks did they get out of me."
A flush had mantled upon Spinoza's olive cheek. "Did they give any name?" he asked with unusual eagerness.
"It ends in Ende—that stuck in my memory."
"Van den Ende?"
"Or suchlike."
"The daughter was—beautiful?"
"A goddess!" put in the painter.