[2] Dora.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
Next morning, Ottilie Steyn de Weert arrived at the Hook of Holland. She was accompanied by a young fellow of nearly thirty, a good-looking, well-set-up young Englishman, clean-shaven, pink and white under his travelling-cap, broad-shouldered in his check jacket and knickerbockers. They took the train to the Hague.
Ottilie Steyn was under the influence of emotion. She could be silent when she wished and so she had never spoken about it; but she suspected, she knew almost for certain that Takma was her father and she had loved him as a father.
"He was always so good to me," she said, in English, to Hugh Trevelley, her son. "I shall miss him badly."
"He was your father," said Hugh, coolly.
"Not at all," Ottilie protested. "You know nothing about it, Hugh. People are always talking."
"He gave you the money to come to England."
Mamma Ottilie did not know why, but she was sometimes more sincere with Hugh than she was with Lot at home. She loved both these two sons, but she loved Lot because he was kind to her and she was really fonder of Hugh because he was so good-looking and broad-shouldered and because he reminded her of Trevelley, whom she had really loved the best. She had never told Lot that the old gentleman was very generous to her, but she had sometimes said so to Hugh. She was glad to be travelling with Hugh, to be sitting next to him; and yet she was not pleased that Hugh had come with her. He never came to the Hague; and it only meant complications with Steyn, she thought, especially now.