“I don’t understand a word, Walter. But the women—why did you want to——”
Poor innocent Leentje.
“The women were in the book—but listen, I am—sh!”
“And the cloisters?”
“That has nothing to do with it—I know everything now. Listen Leentje, I am—sh!”
“For Heaven sake, Walter, what’s the matter with you? You look as if you were mad.”
Walter had a vision. He stretched himself up, cast a proud glance at the beams in the ceiling, placed his right hand over his heart, extended his left, as if he were draping a Spanish mantle about him—remember that he had never been in a theatre—and said:
“Leentje, I am a prince.”
At that moment his mother came in, boxed his ears and sent him out of the room.