“I have no wish to deny it, sir.”
“Well?”
“Well? I have tried to do my duty—the nearest duty.”
“Java! It seems to me your duty was a very far one. Well, well, we are heartily glad to have you back. Come into the smoking-room, and we will smoke a really good cigar.”
CHAPTER IV
THE VAN HELMONTS
Baron van Helmont could have dug out no better epithet to apply to himself and his race than the word which rose naturally to the top, “easy-going.” He knew he was “easy-going.” The Van Helmonts had always been that. “Stream with the stream.” “Tout s’arrange.” He could hear his grandfather saying these things in a far away mist of Louis XV. powder and ruffles; he remembered how he had brought home his Watteau-faced bride, and how the old gentleman, bent double over his gold-headed cane, had blessed the pair, with a sceptical grimace, at the top of the moss-grown steps.
“My children,” he had said, “you have launched your boat on the current. However you steer, the river flows to the sea. Take an old man’s advice. Let it flow. Laissez couler.”