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66 "Constance, you must absolutely go and hear Brauws this evening. He's grand. You know, I can never listen to any one for more than a quarter of an hour . . ."

"Nor I for more than three minutes," said Paul, who was there. "But I love to talk for an hour on end myself."

"But Brauws: the fellow electrifies you. Though I think that Peace idea of his all rot. But that makes no difference: the chap speaks magnificently . . . I'm dining with Van Vreeswijck and we're going on together."

Paul asked Constance to go with him. That evening, the little hall of Diligentia—the proceeds were to go to the fund for the Boer wounded—was full: Constance and Paul had difficulty in finding seats.

"All sorts of people," Paul observed. "A curious audience. An olla podrida of every set in the Hague. Here and there, the very select people have turned up, no doubt brought by Van Vreeswijck: look, there are the Van der Heuvel Steijns; and there's the French minister; and there, as I live, is Van Naghel, with his colleague from the Treasury . . . And look, there's Isidore the hairdresser . . . A bit of everything, a bit of everything . . . How brotherly and sisterly the Hague has become this evening: it makes me feel quite sentimental!"