Harold Dercksz sat and stared.
In his silent, gloomy business-man's study, he saw the Thing pass, but with such a trailing movement and so slowly.... And he did not notice the door open and his daughter Ina enter. "Father ..."
He did not answer.
"Father! Father ..."
He started.
"I have come to say good-night.... What were you thinking of so hard, Father?"
Harold Dercksz drew his hand over his forehead:
"Nothing, dear ... things ... old things...."
He saw them: there they went, trailing long spectral veils over rustling leaves ... and ... and was anything threatening behind the trees in that endless path?...
"Old things?... Oh, Father, they are past by now!... I never think of old things: the life of to-day is difficult enough for people without money...."