“So? You don’t smoke?” She omitted his “yet.”
“Well, it’s a good thing. It’s a stupid habit in men. And forever the terrible smoke! I know other young gentlemen who do not smoke. For instance, there is Piet Hammel. He’s as old as you, but a little smaller. He’s going to marry a cousin of mine; and he doesn’t smoke either.”
Walter felt better now. He was interested.
“Yes, they’re going to get married about—well, I don’t know exactly when. But they intend to marry. I tell you, you are a real bachelor; and it’s awfully stupid of them still to treat you like a child. I’ve told your mother so a hundred times. There on the street just now, when we were together—I’m a delicate woman; but do you think I was afraid?—with you with me? Not a bit. Not a trace of fear. And why? Because everybody could see that I had a man with me. I ought to have taken hold of your arm—you’re almost taller than I am—but I didn’t do it because you had a package. And then—the people talk so much! The watchman might have seen it, and he would have spread the news broadcast that I had been seen at night with a gentleman.”
With a gentleman! Walter was listening.
“A woman must always think of her reputation. But we’re here at home now, and that’s very different, entirely different. I know that of course you wouldn’t tell anything bad about me. Whoever tells anything bad on a woman isn’t a true gentleman. You know that.”
Yes, Walter knew it. He understood Juffrouw Laps better than she imagined.
“What I wanted to say was, you must never go through that street. So long as you were a child, it made no difference. But now! Let me fill your glass for you.”
Walter drank.
O Fancy, my muse, where art thou?