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Rh the damned wench want to come back to Holland for and why must she look at him and speak to him, why must she go walking past the barracks? Was she mad, was she mad? . . . He felt angry and uneasy. . . . And, a day or two after, as though he had a presentiment, he hung about the barracks, so as to go away alone, quite late.

He met her; and, in the dim light under the fading trees, her eyes laughed towards him through the distance like gold, with that gay, wicked glint of mockery.

"Damn it all!" he cursed.

And, resolved to take up a firm attitude, he squared his chest, put his shoulders back, apparently wishing to fill the whole lane with his manly determination to force his way through every ambush and snare. But she stopped right in front of him and said, in that drowsy, seductive voice:

"Good-evening, Gerrit!"

"Look here, clear off, will you? And be damned quick about it!" said Gerrit, angrily.

"It's so nice, meeting you again!"

"Yes, but I don't think it a bit nice, see? So be off!"

And he tried to walk on, broad-chested and imposing, the strong man who would trample on every smiling and mocking temptation that blocked his way under the fading trees.