"Yes. If you haven't one . . . or if you can't give it me . . . then I don't want anything, Gerrit. And thank you, Gerrit."
"I'll see," he said, dully.
He kissed her once more:
"So good-bye, Pauline."
"Good-bye, Gerrit."
She kissed him hurriedly, almost drove him out of the room. It was ten o'clock in the evening.
Gerrit, in the street outside, heaved a great sigh of relief. Yes, this was all right: he was rid of her now. It had not lasted very long; and the best part of it was that none of his brother-officers, of his friends or of his family had for a moment suspected that connection, for a moment noticed that the past, his memories, his youth had loomed up before him, haunting him and mocking him in Pauline, in her body, in her golden eyes. It had remained a secret; and what might have been a great annoyance in his life as husband and father had been no more than a momentary and unsuspected effort to force back what was long over and done with. It was now over and done with for ever. Oh, it was the first time and the last: never again would he allow himself to be entrapped by the haunting recollections of former years! . . . But how sad it was to reflect that all that past was really over and done with . . . and that everything had been!
During the days and weeks that followed, he went
