She sprang up holding her hands before her face, and fled, leaving her white sewing on the grass.
John de Witt sat silent, his form half bowed, his head bent.
Beside Agneta’s place rested a paper-bound book, his own, he saw: On the Value of Life Annuities as Compared with Perpetual Annuities—the book of which the Prince had spoken. It dealt with the enormous difficulty of the war taxation; a monument of learning, of research, of patriotism.
Agneta, who was gravely studying mathematics, had begged a copy from her uncle Vivien and carried it about with her. It touched John de Witt exceedingly to see it there.
Had she been reading it that she might understand his learned talk of the means by which he had saved the finances of the United Provinces?—poor child!…
He sat for a while staring at the humble little volume; hands and brains for once idle, the sunset flushing the garden about him and the tender breeze caressing his face.
When he at length slowly moved at the sound of a step on the gravel path he saw his father, Jacob de Witt, coming towards him with the careful gait of age.
The Grand Pensionary rose smilingly.
Jacob de Witt was still as erect as when he had defied the Stadtholder, William II., in 1650. A fine and sedate gentleman, with soft white hair falling under his black cap; stern, melancholy, and pale.
“Sit down, John, I wish to speak to you.”