Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/185

Rh "Again?"

"It interests me."

"Tell me about your own life."

"I've just been telling you."

"Yes, about Rome and Brussels. Now tell me about Buitenzorg."

"Why about that?"

"The childhood of my friends—I hope I may number you among my friends?—always interests me."

"About Buitenzorg? I don't remember anything . . . I was a little girl . . . There was nothing in particular . . ."

"Your brother Gerrit . . ."

She turned pale, but he did not see it, in the dim room.

"What has he been saying?"

"Your brother Gerrit remembers it all. The other night, after your dinner here, he told me about it while we were smoking."

"Gerrit?" she said, anxiously.

"Yes: how prettily you used to play on the great boulders in the river . . ."

She flushed scarlet, in the friendly dusk:

"He's mad!" she said, harshly. "What does he want to talk about that for?"

He laughed:

"Mayn't he? He idolizes you . . . and he idolized you at that time . . ."