"Well, first find me a clean towel."
"The towel is clean, sir," said Truitje, who happened to be passing.
"No, I want a towel fresh from the wash, folded in nice, clean folds."
And it was great fun: Marietje ran hunting for Constance, to get the keys of the linen-press.
"So you've come to live here?" said Van der Welcke, who came down while Paul was washing his hands.
"Yes, I had a sudden, irresistible impulse to move to Driebergen. I was feeling a little lonely at the Hague," he confessed. "I am growing old and lonely. And it's cleaner in the country; the air is less foul, though I'm not lucky with this thaw. The road outside was one great puddle. But I have found two airy rooms, in a villa.... It's strange, I should never have believed that I could ever come and live at Driebergen ... and in the winter too!..."
He inspected his hands, which were now clean:
"Imagine," he said, "if there were no water left! I should be dead next day!"
Paul really brightened up. He was a great deal at the house, very soon got into the habit of dining there every evening and, because he felt scruples at always taking his meals at Van der Welcke's expense, he made handsome presents, as a set-off for his sponging, he said, so that in the end it cost him more than if he had dined every day at home. He ordered fine flowers and fruit from the Hague; on Van der Welcke's birthday, he gave him a case of champagne; on Constance' birthday, a parcel of caravan tea, because he came and had tea with them every afternoon. In this way he contributed generously to the house-keeping and relieved his scruples. He brightened up considerably, after his recent years of loneliness, talked away lustily, broached his philosophies, played Wagner; and even Mathilde accepted him as a pleasant change, with a touch of the Hague about him.
Constance would rebuke him at times and say: