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388 She laughed, scornfully:

“Shall you do that for the sake of your son’s future?”

He controlled himself, clenched his fists, rushed from the room with tears in his eyes, flung himself in his chair upstairs, smoked cigarette upon cigarette, walked up and down in impotent rage. . ..

That evening, Gerrit and Paul came round. They also knew about the Dwarskijker: they said that a copy had been dropped into Van Naghel’s letterbox too. And Gerrit, getting furious, because Van der Welcke was still furious, said:

“If you want to break the fellow’s jaw, Van der Welcke, I’m your man!”

Paul wearily closed his eyes and expressed disapproval with every bored feature of his face:

“My dear Gerrit, don’t come playing the bold swashbuckler, thinking you can chop the world to pieces with your silly old sword. And you, Van der Welcke, for Heaven’s sake, keep calm, if you don’t want to make things worse than they are!”

“But what are we to do?” asked Constance, impatiently.

“Nothing at all,” said Paul, philosophically.