Juffrouw Josine spent twenty minutes over the secrets of her toilet. Her poor old heart beat wildly. “He cannot even wait till the evening,” she thought. “The densest fool would understand.” When at last she descended, arrayed in her best Sunday green-silk dress with the poppies, she was surrounded by odors of ess. bouquet and sal volatile.
She had to pause before the drawing-room door and steady herself. She entered. There was Otto, a great bunch of apricot-colored roses in one hand, bending over a map of Java with the Dominé. “That is my part,” he was saying. “One of the healthiest, I assure you, Dominé. All the men take their wives out there.”
“Ah!” thought Miss Mopius. She shook hands, and the Jonker rather awkwardly presented his flowers.
“From my mother,” he stammered, “to welcome Miss Rovers.”
“How kind of you to bring them,” replied Miss Mopius, sitting down on the sofa and sniffing. “I hope Ursula will be grateful. _I_ consider it most exceedingly kind.”
She squinted across at the Dominé, who still bent over the map. There was a long wait, and Otto returned to the table.
“Roderigue,” said Miss Mopius, in desperation. “Ursula wants you. She wants you at once!”
The minister lifted a countenance of mild astonishment.
“Very well,” he said, remembering his daughter’s painful experiences of the last days, “I’ll be back in a moment, Otto. I want to ask you about that mission station you were telling me of.”
“Miss Rovers, I hear,” said Otto, “has safely returned.”
“She came back earlier than she had intended,” continued the Jonker. “I suppose that she felt being away from what is doubtless a most happy home.”
“I try to make it happy,” murmured Miss Mopius.
“Could you do otherwise?” said Otto, fervently. And he added, in a tone that was almost sad, “It seems cruel to disturb your trefoil even for a day.”
Miss Mopius gasped for breath. She muttered something about “leaving and cleaving.”
“Yes; it’s very hot,” he hazarded. “Shall I open the window?”
“Oh!” she replied, “but not as hot as Java, I suppose? Not nearly as hot as Java. I should enjoy Java. I like heat. I’m not strong, Mynheer van Helmont, but the hot weather always does me good. I’m sure I should feel much better in Java.”