HOME
“Who is that yellow-frock among the yellow flowers?” asked Otto van Helmont. “But, of course, I can guess,” he added, immediately. “That was the parsonage we just passed. The ‘nut-brown maid’ must be Ursula Rovers.”
“Ursula? Was she there still?” replied Gerard, flicking a fly from the horse’s flank. “She seems to live in the garden. Doesn’t care tuppence about her complexion.”
“She is very remarkably beautiful.”
“Do you think so? I never noticed. You see, I have known her all my life. She is just the parson’s daughter. I suppose she reminds you of your own Javanese.”
Otto flushed, and the two drove on, side by side, in silence. They were very unlike to look at; there must have been, as Dominé Rovers had said, from fifteen to twenty years’ interval between them. The young man was spruce and slender, carelessly elegant in appearance and attitude, the elder brother, the planter, sat square and stalwart, with ruddy skin and tawny beard. He was coming home for rest, weary of the jaded splendor of the tropics. As they drove on, he turned right and left, with eager, misty eyes. The salute of the passing peasants delighted him; he watched, in quiet ecstasy, their long-drawn glances of inquiry or semi-acknowledgment. This was better than the humbly crouching savages under the cocoa-trees. This was recognition; this was home.
The avenue was home, the white house behind the trees was home, and the clasp of his mother’s arms—no, that was home. Never mind, for one moment, the rest.
“You have gray hairs here and there, Otto,” said the Baroness van Helmont, fondly. “I never knew I was an old woman before.”
Otto’s father bent down quickly and kissed her slender hand.