“My dear Max, you pretend that you don’t know how to talk to ‘ladies’ and there you stand, like a typical courtier, paying compliments to my wife. That’s all superfluous, you know: here’s a cup of coffee; sit down, make yourself at home, choose your own chair; and now, Mr. Miner, tell your Mad Hans how, when you were in America, you went even madder than he.”
But Brauws was obviously still seeking subterfuges, as though it were impossible for him to interpret the riddle of his former existence to these people who were entertaining him so kindly; and at last he half managed to escape their pressing curiosity by saying:
“But I can’t possibly tell you all that straight away.... Perhaps later, mevrouw, when I have known you a little longer, I may be able to tell you about that time, so that you may understand it after a fashion.”
Constance was disappointed, but she said, with a smile:
“Then I must exercise patience.”
“But I exercise no patience,” said Van der Welcke. “Tell us now, Max: when you left Leiden, after taking your degree in law, a year before I did—but you were much older than I, an older student who really studied, a rara avis!—what did you do then?”
“I first went back to my father and my brothers, to the factory. And then I took such an aversion to the whole thing, to all that we represented, my father, my brothers and I, that I determined to go and lead an entirely different life. I saw that, though my father and brothers were comparatively good to their workmen, those workmen remained slaves; and we....”
He passed his hand over his forehead:
“How can I and why should I talk about all this, my dear Hans?” he said, gently interrupting himself. “You wouldn’t understand me; nor you either, mevrouw....”