to tell him what he thought, that he was a worthless old sponge, but to make it plain that things would not go on as they had been doing.  The girl’s interruption had been annoying, so ill-timed and out of place; she ought to have gone at once when he suggested it; she had placed him and herself, too, in an embarrassing position; yet, at the same time—­he saw it now, though he did not earlier—­there was something quaint in the way she had both metaphorically and actually stood between him and her miserable old father.  He had dictated the subsequent letter to the Captain more on her account than anything else.  He considered that by it he was making her the amend honourable for the unfortunate interview of the afternoon, as well as closing the incident.  Of course, nothing real was forfeited by the letter, for under no circumstances would the money have been repaid; he never had any delusion about that.  From which it appears that his opinion of the Captain had not changed.

As for his opinion of Julia, he had not one when he first saw her, except that she had no business to be there; now, however, he felt some little interest in her.  There was very little that was interesting in this small Dutch town; it was a refreshing change, he admitted it to himself, to see a girl here who put her clothes on properly; something of a change to meet one anywhere who did not at once fall into one of the well-defined categories.

Much in this world has to be lain at the door of opportunity, and idleness in youth, and ennui and boredom in middle ages.  Rawson-Clew was in the borderland between the two, and did not consider himself open to the temptations of either.  He was not idle, he had things to do; and he was not bored, he had things to think about; but not enough of either to prevent him from having a wide margin.

When he met Julia again there was no reason for dropping the acquaintance renewed through necessity.  But also there was no opportunity, on that occasion, for pushing it further, even if there had been inclination, for she was not alone.

It was on Saturday evening; she was walking down the same road, much about the same time, but there was with her a tall, fair young man, with a long face and loose limbs.  He carried, of course, an umbrella—­that was part of his full dress—­and the basket—­he walked between her and the cart track.  She bowed sedately to Rawson-Clew, and the young man, becoming tardily aware of it, took off his hat, rather late, and with a sweeping foreign flourish.  She wore a pair of cotton gloves, and lifted her dress a few inches, and glanced shyly up at her escort now and then as he talked.  They were speaking Dutch, and she was behaving Dutch, as plain and demure a person as it was possible to imagine, until she looked back, then Rawson-Clew saw a very devil of mockery and mischief flash up in her eyes.  Only for a second; the expression was gone before her head was turned again, and that was decorously soon.  But it had been there; it was like the momentary parting of the clouds on a grey day; it illumined her whole face—­her mind, too, perhaps—­as the eerie, tricky gleam, which is gone before a man knows it, lights up the level landscape, and transforms it to something new and strange.