This remark Julia did not communicate to Joost; she put the letter in her pocket, and went to fetch the dinner.  After dinner she was to go on an errand for Mevrouw.  It would take a long time, all the evening in fact, for it was to an old relative who lived in a village about three miles from the town.  Walking was the only way of getting to the place, except twice a week when a little cargo boat went down the canal, and took some hours about it.  This was neither the day nor the time for the boat, Julia would have to walk; but, as she assured Mevrouw, she much preferred it.  Accordingly, as soon as dinner was finished, she was given a great many messages, mostly of a condoling nature, for the old lady was ill in bed, some strengthening soup, and a little bottle of the peach-brandy.  With these things packed in a substantial marketing basket, she started.

Through the town she went with that easy step and indifference to the presence of other people that Denah so criticised, faster and faster her spirits rising.  Once or twice she looked in at the low windows that stood open on the shady side of the street; there she saw the heads of families smoking their after-dinner pipes, while their wives and daughters sat crocheting and watching the passersby.  There were chairs with crimson velvet seats in most of the rooms, and funny little cabinet, or side-board things of bright red mahogany, with modern Delft vases, very blue indeed, upon them.  And always there was a certain snugness, perhaps even smugness, about the rooms.  At least, so it seemed to her as she looked in, almost insolently pleased to be outside, to be free and alone.

In time she came to the outskirts of the town, the canal lay on her right, and on her left, flat green fields, cut up by innumerable ditches, and set with frequent windmills, all black and white, and mostly used for maintaining the water level.  There were people busy in the fields, but to Julia they only gave the idea of ants, and did not intrude upon her mind in the least.  It was all very quiet and green around, and quiet and blue above, except for the larks singing rapturously.  Certainly it was very good to be away from the Van Heigens, away from the ceaseless little reiteration of Mevrouw’s talk, from the minute, punctilious conventions, from Joost’s quiet gaze, from the proximity of the hateful, necessary blue daffodil.  With a violent rebound Julia shook off the feeling that had been growing on her of late, and was once more possibly reckless, but certainly free, and no longer under the spell of her surroundings.  Her young blood coursed quickly, her eyes shone, the basket she carried grew light; she might have sung as she went had not Nature, in withholding the ability, also kindly withheld the inclination.