She almost blushed; and a thrill went through her, that catch at her throat and grip at her heart which his step, his voice, his glance could still always give her; and she was not able to answer at once. Yes, really she had done nothing that summer except read his Peace! So it seemed to her for a moment. But, when she recovered from that sudden wave of emotion, she reflected that it was not so; that she had read other things; that she had dreamt, had thought; that she had lived! It was very strange, but she reflected . . . that she had lived!
It was as though both of them had much to say to each other and yet did not know how to say it. Van der Welcke was not at home; and they talked together for a long time of indifferent things. He felt all the while that a vague question was rising to his lips, a question hardly formulated even in his mind. He longed to ask her something, such a question as a brother's tenderness might have prompted, to which she would answer with a sister's ready sympathy. But he did not know how to speak; and so he buried within himself that strange bright tenderness which longed to give itself expression, to ask its questions; and he locked himself up in his deep, mournful seriousness, the sombreness of a middle-aged man. She also, opposite him, was the same, sat and spoke like a middle-aged woman; he remarked the soft grey of her curling hair; and both of them, serious, almost indifferent, talked
