“To-morrow,” says uncle, “there will be a big dinner here, and a ball, but to-day you young people must rest after your journey.  Now we will eat our supper, and then we will go to bed.”

They are escorted into a drawing-room, and there they are left alone.  The ironmaster rushes out like a wind which is afraid of being shut in.  Five minutes later he is rolling down the avenue in his big carriage, and the coachman is driving so that the horses seem to be lying along the ground.  After another five minutes uncle is there again, and now an old lady is sitting beside him in the carriage.

And in he comes, with a kind, talkative old lady on his arm.  And she takes Anne-Marie and embraces her, but Maurits she greets more stiffly.  No one can take any liberties with Maurits.

However, Anne-Marie is very glad that this pleasant old lady has come.  She and the ironmaster have such a merry way of joking with one another.

But when they have said good-night and Anne-Marie has come into her little room, something too tiresome and provoking happens.

Uncle and Maurits are walking in the garden, and she knows that Maurits is unfolding his plans for the future.  Uncle does not seem to be saying anything at all; he is only walking and striking the blades of grass with his stick.  But Maurits will persuade him fast enough that the best thing for him to do is to give Maurits a position as manager of one of his steel-works, if he does not care to give him the works outright.  Maurits has grown so practical since he has been in love.  He often says:  “Is it not best for me, who am to be a great landowner, to make myself familiar with it all?  What is the use of taking my bar examinations?”

They are walking directly under the window and nothing prevents them from seeing that she is sitting there; but as they do not mind it, no one can ask that she shall not hear what they are saying.  It is really just as much her affair as it is Maurits’s.

Then Uncle Theodore suddenly stops and he looks angry.  He looks quite furious, she thinks, and she almost calls to Maurits to take care.  But it is too late, for Uncle Theodore has seized Maurits, crushed his ruffle, and is shaking him till he twists like an eel.  Then he slings him from him with such force that Maurits staggers backwards any! would have fallen if he had not found support in a tree trunk.  And there Maurits stands and gasps “What?” Yes, what else should he say?

Ah, never has she admired Maurits’s self-control so much!  He does not throw himself upon Uncle Theodore and fight him.  He only looks calmly superior, merely innocently surprised.  She understands that he controls himself so that the journey may not be for nothing.  He is thinking of her, and is controlling himself.