Page:Twilight of the Souls (1917).djvu/182



had dragged by, when Gerrit, riding out with his squadron, had a meeting that gave him a shock. It was on the Koninginnegracht, one dank autumn morning, dull and dark at that early hour, as if it would not get light all day; the whole roadway was taken up by the horses, whose hoofs clatttered in rhythmical trot over the even cobbles; the maids, in their lilac-print dresses, hung out of the windows to look at the fine hussars. A closed cab came towards the squadron and had to pull up beside the pavement to let the horses pass. And, with a swift glance, Gerrit saw through the dimmed panes of the carriage the face of a woman with a pair of laughing eyes: two brown-gold sparks of laughter, lasting scarce two or three seconds, those two gleams of gay gold. The laughing eyes were all that he saw in the vague expanse of face, pale in the shadow of the cab, under the dark frame of a large hat; but that laughing glance gave him such a shock that he flushed purple, while his blood flew to his temples and set them throbbing as if he had taken a cocktail. He felt a stinging sensation in his neck; and the thought flashed through him:

"I'll be hanged if that wasn't Pauline! I'll be