“Aren’t you afraid that the ideas of ... a labouring-man will spoil him?”
“Oh, there’s no spoiling my boy!” said she, lifting her head high and putting her arm round Addie’s shoulder with motherly pride.
“And you don’t make him vain, by saying that?”
“There’s no making him vain,” she continued, boasting a little, like a proud mother.
“So he can stay?” asked Brauws.
“He can stay.”
“Well, in that case I shall tell you more about myself.”
“Only in that case?”
“You are giving me a proof of confidence and, I might almost say, of sympathy.”
Van der Welcke took his friend by the shoulders: