[CHAPTER XI]
The front-door bell made old Takma wake with a start. And he knew that he had been to sleep, but he did not allude to it and quietly acted as though he had only been sitting and resting, with his hands leaning on his ivory-knobbed stick. And, when Dr. Roelofsz entered, he said, with his unvarying little joke:
"Well, Roelofsz, you don't get any thinner as the years go by!"
"Well-well," said the doctor, "d'you think so, Takma?"
He came rolling in, enormous of paunch, which hung dropsically and askew towards his one stiff leg, which was shorter than the other; and, in his old, clean-shaven, monkish face, his bleared little eyes glittered behind the gold spectacles and were angry because Takma was always referring to his paunch and he didn't like it.
"Harold is upstairs," said Ottilie Steyn.
"Come, child," said Takma, rising with an effort, "we'd better go upstairs now; then we'll drive Harold away...."
They went up slowly. But there was another ring at the front-door.
"There's such a bustle some days," said old Anna to the doctor. "But the mistress isn't neglected in her old age! We shall soon have to start fires in the morning-room, for there's often some one waiting here...."