“I don’t. I could almost say, I hate her as she hates me.”

“Why?” she asked, in a frightened voice. “You don’t know her. You can’t hate her.”

“I am different from other people, am I not, mevrouw? I say different things and I say them differently. You know it, you knew it before I entered your house!” he said, almost fiercely.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to say something to you.”

“What is it?”

“That child ... that delicate, that lily-white child ... is....”

“What?”

“The danger to your domestic happiness.”

She gave a violent start: