"And who do you think's in town?" Van Vreeswijck asked Van der Welcke, as they were walking together.
"I don't know."
"Brauws."
"Brauws?"
"Max Brauws."
"Max? Never! What, Leiden Max?"
"Yes, Leiden Max. I hadn't seen him for years."
"Nor I, of course. And what is he doing?"
"Well, that's a difficult question to answer. Shall I say, being eccentric?"
"Eccentric? In what way?"
"Oh, in the things he does. First one thing and then another. He's giving lectures now. In fact, he's a Bohemian."
"Have you spoken to him?"
"Yes, he asked after you."
"I should like to see him. Does he belong to the Witte?"
"No, I don't think so."
"He's a mad fellow. Always was mad. An interesting chap, though. And a good sort. Has he money?"
"I don't know."
"Where is he staying?"
"In rooms, in the Buitenhof."
"We're close by. Let's go and see if he's in."
Brauws was not in. And Van der Welcke left a card for his old college-chum, with a pencilled word.
A fortnight passed; and Van der Welcke began to feel annoyed:
"I've heard nothing from Brauws," he said to Van Vreeswijck.
"I haven't seen him either."
"Perhaps he's offended about something."
"Nonsense, Brauws isn't that sort."
Van der Welcke was silent. Since the scene with the family, he was unduly sensitive, thinking that people were unfriendly, that they avoided him.
"Well, if he wants to ignore my card, let him!" he said, angrily. "He can go to the devil, for all I care!"
But, a couple of days later, when Van der Welcke was smoking in his little room, Truitje brought in a card.
"Brauws!" exclaimed Van der Welcke.
And he rushed outside:
"Come upstairs, old chap!" he shouted, from the landing.
In the hall stood a big, quiet man, looking up with a smile round his thick moustache.
"May I come up?"
"Yes, yes, come up. Upon my word, Max, I am glad . . ."
Brauws came upstairs; the two men gripped each other's hands.
"Welckje!" said Brauws. "Mad Hans!"
Van der Welcke laughed:
"Yes, those were my nicknames. My dear chap, what an age since we . . ."
He took him to his den, made him sit down, produced cigars.
"No, thanks, I don't smoke. I'm glad to see you. Why, Hans, you haven't changed a bit. You're a little stouter; and that's all. Just look at the fellow! You could pass for your own son. How old are you? You're thirty-eight . . . getting on for thirty-nine. And now just look at me. I'm three years your senior; but I look old enough to be your father."
Van der Welcke laughed, pleased and flattered by the compliment paid to his youth. Their Leiden memories came up; they reminded each other of a score of incidents, speaking and laughing together in unfinished, breathless sentences which they understood at once.
"And what have you been doing all this time?"
"Oh, a lot! Too much to tell you all at once. And you?"
"I? Nothing, nothing. You know I'm married?"
"Yes, I know," said Brauws. "But what do you do? You're in a government-office, I suppose?"
"No, Lord no, old fellow! Nothing, I just do nothing. I cycle."
They both laughed. Brauws looked at his old college-friend, almost paternally, with a quiet smile.
"The beggar hasn't changed an atom," he said. "Yes, now that I look at you again, I see something here and there. But you've remained Welckje, for all that . . ."
"But not Mad Hans," sighed Van der Welcke.
"Vreeswijck has become a great swell," said Brauws. "And the others?"
"Greater swells still."
"Not you?"
"No, not I. Do you cycle?"
"Sometimes."
"Have you a motor-car?"
"No."
"That's a pity. I should like to have a motor. But I can't afford one of those sewing-machines."
Brauws roared with laughter:
"Why don't you start saving up for one?"
"No, old chap, no . . ."
"I say, do you know what's a funny thing? While you were living in Brussels, I too was living just outside Brussels."
"Impossible!"
"Yes, I was."
"And we never met?"
"I so seldom went into town. If I had known . . ."
"But what a pity!"
"Yes. And what's still funnier is that, when you were on the Riviera, I was there too."
"Look here, old fellow, you're kidding me!"
"I never knew till later that you were there also that year. But you were at Monte Carlo and I at Antibes. Just compare the dates."
They compared dates: Brauws was right.
"But that was horribly unlucky."
"It couldn't be helped. However, we've found each other now."
"Yes. We must see something of each other now, eh? Let's go cycling together . . . or buy a motor-car between us."
Brauws roared with laughter again:
"Happy devil!" he shouted.
"I?" cried Van der Welcke, a little huffed. "What's there happy about me? I sometimes feel very miserable, very miserable indeed."
Brauws understood that he was referring to his marriage.
"Here's my boy," said Van der Welcke, showing Addie's photograph.
"A good face. What's he going to be?"
"He's going into the diplomatic service. I say, shall we take a stroll?"
"No, I'd rather sit here and talk."
"You're just as placid as ever . . ."
Brauws laughed:
"Outwardly, perhaps," he said. "Inwardly, I'm anything but placid."
"Have you been abroad much?"
"Yes."
"What do you do?"
"Much . . . and perhaps nothing. I am seeking . . ."
"What?"
"I can't explain it in a few words. Perhaps later, when we've seen more of each other."
"You're the same queer chap that you always were. What are you seeking?"
"Something."
"There's our old oracle. 'Something!' You were always fond of those short words."
"The universe lies in a word."
"Max, I can't follow you, if you go on like that. I never could, you know."
"Tell me about yourself now, about Rome, about Brussels."
Van der Welcke, smoking, described his life, more or less briefly, through the blue clouds of his cigarette. Brauws listened:
"Yes," he said. "Women . . ."
He had a habit of not finishing his sentences, or of saying only a single word.
"And what have women done to you?" asked Van der Welcke, gaily.
Brauws laughed:
"Nothing much," he said, jestingly. "Not worth talking about. There have been many women in my life . . . and yet they were not there."
Van der Welcke reflected.
"Women," he said, pensively. "Sometimes, you know . . ."
"Hans, are you in love?"
"No, no!" said Van der Welcke, starting. "No, I've been fairly good."
"Fairly good?"
"Yes, only fairly . . ."
"You're in love," said Brauws, decisively.
"You're mad!" said Van der Welcke. "I wasn't thinking of myself . . . And, now, what are you doing in the Hague?"
Brauws laughed:
"I'm going to give lectures, not only here, but all over Holland."
"Lectures?" cried Van der Welcke, in astonishment. "What made you think of that? Do you do it to make money? Don't you find it a bore to stand jawing in front of a lot of people for an hour at a time?"
"Not a bit," said Brauws. "I'm lecturing on Peace."
"Peace?" cried Van der Welcke, his blue orbs shining in wide-eyed young amazement through the blue haze of his cigarette-smoke. "What Peace?"
"Peace, simply."
"You're getting at me," cried Van der Welcke.
Brauws roared; and Van der Welcke too. They laughed for quite a minute or two.
"Hans," said Brauws, "how is it possible for any one to change as little as you have done? In all these years! You are just as incapable as in the old days of believing in anything serious."
"If you imagine that there's been nothing serious in my life," said Van der Welcke, vexed.
And, with great solemnity, he once more told his friend about Constance, about his marriage, his shattered career.
Brauws smiled.
"You laugh, as if it all didn't matter!" cried Van der Welcke, angrily.
"What does anything matter?" said Brauws.
"And your old Peace?"
"Very little as yet, at any rate . . . Perhaps later . . . Luckily, there's the future."
But Van der Welcke shrugged his shoulders and demolished Peace in a few ready-made sentences: there would always be war; it was one of those Utopian ideas . . .
Brauws only smiled.
"You must come and dine one day, to meet Vreeswijck," said Van der Welcke.
Brauws' smile disappeared suddenly:
"No, my dear fellow, honestly . . ."
"Why not?"
"I'm not the man for dinners."
"It won't be a dinner. Only Vreeswijck. My wife will be very pleased."
"Yes, but I shall be putting your wife out . . ."
"Not a bit. I'll see if she's at home and introduce you to her."
"No, my dear fellow, no, honestly . . . I'm no ladies' man. I'm nothing of a drawing-room person. I never know what to say."
"You surely haven't grown shy!"
"Yes, almost. With ladies . . . I really don't know what to say. No, old chap, honestly. . . ."
His voice was full of anxious dismay.
"I think it's mean of you, to refuse to come and dine with us, quite quietly."
"Yes . . . and then it'll be a dinner of twenty people. I know."
"I shouldn't know where to get them from. We see nobody. Nobody."
"No, no . . . Well, yes, perhaps later."
He raised his hand deprecatingly, almost impatiently:
"Come," he said, "let's go for a walk."
And, as though fearing lest Van der Welcke should still find a moment to introduce him to his wife, Brauws hurried him down the stairs. Once outside, he breathed again, recovered his usual placidity.