He still looked puzzled; he was half afraid she was laughing at him. "You think I am stupid?" he said, gravely.
She denied it, and they walked on a little in silence. They were in the quieter part of the town now and could talk undisturbed; after a little he spoke again, musingly.
"Often I wonder what you think of, you have such great, shining eyes, they eat up everything; they see everything and through everything, I think. They sweep round the room, or the persons or the place, and gather all—may I say it?—like some fine net—to me it seems they draw all things into your brain, and there you weave them and weave them into thoughts."
Julia swallowed a little exclamation, and by an effort contrived not to appear as surprised as she was by this too discerning remark. She was so young that she did not before know that children and child-like folk sometimes divine by instinct the same conclusions that very clever people arrive at by much reasoning and observation. She felt decidedly uncomfortable at this explanation of Joost's frequent contemplations of herself.
"You seem to think me very clever," she said.
"Of course," he answered simply, "you are clever."
"No, I am not," she returned; "ask your mother; ask Denah Snieder; they do not think me clever. What can I do, except cook? Oh, yes, and speak a few foreign language as you can yourself? I cannot paint, or draw, or sing; I do not understand music; why, when you play Bach, I wish to go out of the room."
"That is true," he admitted; "I have felt it."
Julia bit her lip; she had never before expressed her opinion of Bach, and she did not feel in the least gratified that he had found it out for himself.
"It is absurd to call me clever," she said. "I have little learning and no accomplishments. I cannot even get on with the crochet work Denah showed me, and I do not know how to make flowers of paper."