“Anne-Marie!”
“Yes, what else are we both,” continues the merciless tongue, which, since it has once started, finds it best to clear up this matter which has tortured her conscience ever since she has begun to realize that this rich man who owned this big estate had a heart too which could suffer and yearn. So while her tongue is so well started and all shyness seems to have fallen from her, she says:—
“When we placed ourselves in the chaise at home there, what did we think? What did we talk about on the way? About how we would deceive him there. ‘You must be brave, Anne-Marie,’ you said. ‘And you must be crafty, Maurits,’ I said. We thought only of ingratiating ourselves. We wished to have much and we wished to give nothing except hypocrisy. It was not our intention to say: ‘Help us, because we are poor and care for one another,’ but we were to flatter and fawn until Uncle was charmed by me or by you; that was our intention. But we meant to give nothing in return; neither love nor respect nor even gratitude. And why did you not come alone, why must I come too? You wished to show me to him; you wished me to—to—”
Uncle Theodore rises when he sees Maurits raise his hand against her. For now he has finished counting, and follows what is passing with his heart swelling with hope. His heart flies wide open to receive her as she now screams and runs into his arms, runs there without hesitation or consideration, quite as if there were no other place on earth to which to run.
“Uncle, he will strike me!”
And she presses close, close to him.
But Maurits is now calm again. “Forgive my impetuosity, Anne-Marie,” he says. “It hurt me to hear you speak in such a childish way in Uncle’s presence. But Uncle must also understand that you are only a child. Still I grant that not even the most just wrath gives a man the right to strike a woman. Come here now and kiss me. You need not seek protection from me with anybody.”
She does not move, does not turn, only clings more closely.
“Downie, shall I let him take you?” whispers Uncle Theodore.
She answers only with a shudder, which quivers through him also.