“Hush, Marianne!”

“Uncle!” said Marianne to Van der Welcke.

“Yes?”

“Don’t you think it silly? To become a workman and then leave off? Why? That’s what I want to know. If you want to become one, you should remain one! Are you in sympathy with those ideas which lead to nothing?”

“I’m very fond of Brauws, Marianne.”

“But not of his ideas?”

“No, he’s a monomaniac. He’s mad on that point, or was.”

“Just so: was.”

“Marianne, are you always so implacable?”

The bells: