Meanwhile, the moon had risen high in the heavens. Through the lofty tree-tops, her beams formed the most curiously shaped and fantastic silhouettes, which, under the influence of the cool night-breeze, seemed to drive one another up and down in endless chase along the bright yellow paths, and the velvety lawns. Here and there, the moonlight fell through groups of Tjemara trees, which, with their long needle-like foliage, greatly resemble our larches, and thus had, as it were, to pass through a network of the finest lace. Nothing could be more weird, and, to a poetic eye, more pleasing, than these strange patches of sifted light, which cast no shadows, and offered so great a contrast to the calm white radiance around, that they looked like the mysterious rings in which elves and fairies hold their nightly revels.  
This night, however, the otherwise so quiet garden offered a most animated spectacle. On all sides, in the avenues, under the trees, on the lawns, were scattered about merry groups of young men and girls, and many more sedate parties also of older people, all thoroughly enjoying the fresh balmy air, and, after the heat and glare of the crowded ball-rooms, finding relief in the cool breeze and pleasant moonlight.
 
After the waltz was over, the band had struck up a fantasia on airs from La Traviata. As the picolo and the cornet began the well-known duet of the first act in which Alfred and Violetta declare their mutual love, and where the music so eloquently interprets the words: [122]
 
“Un jour l’ame ravie,
Je vous vis si jolie,
Que je vous crus sortie
Du céleste séjour.
Etait-ce donc un ange, une femme,
Qui venait d’embraser mon ame?
Las! je ne sais encor … mais depuis ce beau jour,
Je sais que j’aime d’un pur amour.”
Van Nerekool’s arm stole round the waist of his dear Anna, as he led her into a thick grove of Pandan, under whose heavy and broad foliage they might hope, for a few moments, to escape from the observation of those around them.
 
“Now, my own dearest Anna,” said he, “now that we are alone, let me repeat the words which, yonder in the midst of all those people, and with all those eyes fixed upon us, I could but whisper.”
 
The young girl hung trembling all over on her lover’s arm.
 
“Anna, my darling, I love you; I love you more dearly than my words can express, more dearly than my mother, than my sister, more dearly than myself. As I am by your side, I can dream of nothing but happiness, to breathe the same air that you breathe is bliss indeed. O darling Anna, let me tell you again and again how dearly, how faithfully, I love you!”
 
The strong man clasped the girl to his breast, and she hid her head on his shoulder.
 
“Tell me, Anna,” he continued, passionately, “tell me, do you feel some such love for me? Do you love me, dearest? I know I have already had your answer, but repeat that word once again now that we are here alone, now that we are here far from the noise of the world, repeat that little word now as we are standing under the eye of God himself.”
 
He drew the young girl still more closely to him, as he bowed his head down to her lips to listen. She closed her eyes, and then, blending with the wondrous soughing of the breeze in the Tjemara trees, softly and melodiously the magic syllable fell from her lips.
 
He all but uttered a cry of joy, and, bending his head still deeper down towards her, he whispered in trembling accents, “Dearest one, now let me set the seal to my vows of true and faithful love;” and, before Anna had time to utter a word, their lips met, and then, with one long, ardent kiss, they [123]closed the band which, for this transitory world, was to hold their hearts and lives inseparably united.
 
Thus for a few moments they stood in fond embrace, gazing at one another with joy ineffable, while high above them the broad Pandan-leaves were gently waving and sheltering them under their friendly shade, and the wind sighing to the Tjemaras wafted to them from yonder distance the sweet strains of melody which again and again seemed to say:
 
“… Mais depuis ce beau jour,
Je sais que j’aime d’un pur amour.”
Those brief moments of rapture were indeed, for the happy pair of lovers, an ever-memorable page in the book of their life; the fairest page, no doubt, and the happiest. Soon, too soon, they were to be roughly shaken out of their blissful dream.
 
“Anna!” cried a loud voice, “Matilda Meidema is looking for you everywhere. Where can you have got to, my child?”
 
It was the voice of Anna’s mother Laurentia, which suddenly startled our lovers out of their ecstasy. At a single glance the sharp-sighted woman had taken in the whole scene; but she betrayed no surprise, and, in the most winning manner, continued: “I left Matilda, only a moment ago, by yonder bed of roses—if you will follow this path, you can’t help meeting her.”
 
And, as her daughter stood irresolute:
 
“Oh,” said she, “you need not be anxious; Mr. van Nerekool will be kind enough to offer me his arm, so you see you will not leave him sorrowing and utterly forsaken. Make haste.”
 
These words uttered in the most friendly tone, yet so full of sarcasm, dismayed the young girl utterly, and caused her to hurry away with sad forebodings.
 
“And now, Mr. van Nerekool,” said Mrs. van Gulpendam, somewhat loftily, to the young man. “Now, it is our turn, will you kindly offer me your arm?”
 
Without a word, and with a courtly bow, van Nerekool complied; but he felt sick at heart, as though he had committed some crime.
 
“Come,” said she, “we will walk up this avenue of Tjemaras, it is lighter here and not so mysteriously dark as in that horrid Pandan grove. True, I don’t suppose you will have to tell me such pretty tales as you were just now whispering to Anna, Fie, Mr. van Nerekool, that was hardly a loyal action on your part, I must say—” [124]
 
Charles cast his eye on the woman who was leaning on his arm, and who, so calmly and with so musical a voice, signified her maternal disapprobation. They had come forth from the Pandan grove, so that the moonlight, shining full upon the perfect form of her snowy bosom, which a thin tulle handkerchief only nominally protected from the night air, imparted to her person an indescribably fascinating appearance. As though dazzled at the sight, the young man, for a single instant, closed his eyes; and when he opened them again, he found the deep, dark gaze of the beautiful woman fixed full upon him. She seemed to divine the impression which the view of her charms had, for a passing moment, made upon the youthful and susceptible man. Her look seemed to interrogate, and, at the same time, was encouraging.
 
“Madam,” said Charles at length with a deep breath, as if he were putting from him an unwelcome thought; “Madam, you were doubtless surprised to find me walking with Miss Anna in this somewhat lonely part of the garden—”
 
“Walking with her, yes,—and kissing her,” said fair Laurentia, completing the sentence.
 
“Well, yes,” continued Charles, “and kissing her; but should you perhaps think that we had purposely selected this spot, then—”
 
“Well, what then?” asked she, with a sly smile.
 
“Then you would be misjudging Miss Anna and myself.”
 
“I considered,” retorted Laurentia, somewhat sarcastically, “that the spot was an admirable one—well-chosen for kissing.”
 
“Yet it was the merest chance that brought us to it. Believe me, before that moment,—or to speak more correctly,—before this evening, not a word of love had ever passed between us.”
 
“Oh, Mr. van Nerekool!” exclaimed Laurentia, with a mocking smile, “that is quite incredible! Do you expect me to believe that two young people of different sexes, should be kissing each other in an out-of-the-way corner, if there had not previously been some words of affection,—of love,—spoken between them—without, in fact, any question of passion on either side?”
 
“And yet, madam, believe me, it is the perfect truth. I never tell a lie,” broke in Charles, with considerable vehemence.
 
“Aye, aye,” said Laurentia, “I know all about it. I once was young myself. Oh,” continued the pleasure-loving woman, her voice falling at the remembrance of that youth from which she was so loth to part. “Oh, when I was nineteen, I was [125]exactly what Anna is now—I was, as she is now, a budding beauty, I had just as fresh and youthful feelings—I was just as child-like and playful as she is.”
 
Van Nerekool shuddered at this comparison of the daughter with the mother.
 
“I was just as kind-hearted, just as lovable as she is. Oh believe me,” continued she, excitedly, while she allowed her hand to lean on his arm more heavily perhaps than was needful, and gave that arm a gentle pressure. “Believe me, one need not have a very lively imagination to see that Anna will be precisely like me.”
 
For a moment she paused, as if she began to see that she was being carried away by her subject.
 
“No doubt, madam,” replied van Nerekool, gallantly, as he allowed his eye to wander from the face of his fair companion to her shoulders, to her bosom, to her feet. “No doubt, one may safely predict that Miss Anna will, in charms and perfections, nearly come up to her mother.”
 
“Pray, Mr. van Nerekool, no compliments,” said Laurentia, with an affected smile.
 
“But may I beg of you,” continued he, “to let me know for what purpose you drew the parallel? I do not quite see—”
 
Laurentia shook the wealth of curls which covered her neck and descended to her shoulders. No, the simpleton whose arm she held, did not understand her. That was plain enough. One thought of M?Bok Karijah swiftly passed through her brain, and drew a sigh from her.
 
“Oh,” she continued, while her bosom rose and fell quickly as she drew breath more rapidly, “I merely meant to state that I was young once—”
 
“And you are young still,” cried van Nerekool, politely.
 
“That a kiss has been snatched from me too,” continued Laurentia, with a smile of pleasure at the remembrance, “but that occurred in open daylight, in the presence of my parents, and not in the darkness of a Pandan grove.”
 
“Now, madam,” said van Nerekool, very seriously, “allow me, I pray you, to tell you how it all happened. For about a twelvemonth I have been visiting at your house. At first my visits were but rare, of late they have become much more frequent. Now, you are a clever woman and you cannot have failed to see the reason of this. I had made the acquaintance of your daughter, and the more thoroughly I began to appreciate her amiable and noble character, the more deeply did the [126]shaft which had struck me at my first visit, enter into my heart. How shall I go on, madam—the simple truth is that soon I felt that at her side only I could be truly happy. But;—though I ventured to hope that Miss Anna had no aversion for me—and though I thought that I might reckon upon your friendly aid also—yet I very soon began to notice that I failed to gain the good-will of Mr. van Gulpendam. Indeed, I may say, that he positively dislikes me. That feeling of dislike he could not always repress, though he observed towards me the forms of strict politeness; and, though I cannot complain of any purposely inflicted slights, yet now and then his repugnance would show itself in a manner which, to me, has been wholly unmistakable. This, in some measure, discouraged me. Then again, I know that, as yet, my income will not suffice to set up housekeeping on however modest a scale. Thus, you yourself, my dear madam, must have perceived that I left Miss Anna in utter ignorance of my affection for her. Whether or not she may have suspected my passion, I do not dare to say; but certainly I uttered no single word of love to her—”
 
“But Mr. van Nerekool—”
 
“Allow me, madam, to finish my story: certainly I uttered no single word of love to her until this evening when, in the giddy whirl of the dance, the secret which I had so long and so faithfully kept escaped me. I was beside myself with joy when the first declaration of my love was not met with a refusal. And, as a loving mother, can you now blame me because, as we were walking together a few moments later in this garden, I was driven, by the magic power of this lovely scene, by the solemn quiet of this enchanting spot, and by the seductive notes of the music which could not but find an echo in my heart, again to declare my love? Can you blame me because, as I held in my arms the pure angel of my dreams and clasped her to my heart, I sealed the solemn compact of our love with a kiss as pure and as holy—I swear it—as the angels in Heaven might interchange?”
 
Charles van Nerekool spoke with the fire, with the enthusiasm, of truth. His words were nothing like the commonplaces of society, nothing like the phrases which sound like a mere sentimental lesson learnt out of the romantic pages of Georges Sand, of Georges Ohnet or of Hector Malot. His words were eloquent, manly; and came from a true and loyal heart, and they made a deep impression on the fair lady who leaned on his arm, Laurentia—always very impressible—closed her [127]eyes for a moment, as if dazed by the power and purity of his love. Had Mr. van Gulpendam ever, thought she, thus declared his love to her—had he ever spoken of her in such terms? Alas! no; he was a man wholly absorbed in the love of money; and—and—But she—she?—was she free from those faults which now she looked upon with such horror in her husband? For one single moment she was forced to confess herself guilty, for a single moment better thoughts prevailed. But this was only for a moment. The instant after she began to feel jealous of her daughter. Yes, jealous and angry at the thought that Anna has succeeded in winning so pure, so proud, so manly a love—a love which she herself had never either felt or inspired. Moreover she put no faith in so much purity and sincerity as the words of van Nerekool evidently conveyed. Her very nature forbade her to do so. All affection, all love between persons of opposite sexes was, in her estimation, the mere expression of material passion and the consequence of carnal desire. Purity and love were, to her, mere sounds, which, if she could understand them at all, only served as a cloak for far different sentiments. To her they were—they could be—nothing more. Under the influence, therefore, of such miserably grovelling views, she answered sarcastically: “Yes, I can understand all that! Immeasurable bliss under the Pandan bushes! Now, Mr. van Nerekool, shall I tell you what I think of that chaste kiss and all the rest of it?—Well, I think that they are merely fine names for something which might be expressed in totally different language. Why! you, as a man, you surely must know what meaning the world attributes to a kiss!”
 
“Pardon me, madam,” replied Charles, somewhat sadly, “I am, as yet, very young and very inexperienced.”
 
“Yes,” said Laurentia with a mocking laugh, “I can quite perceive that.”
 
“Oh madam,” cried the young man, “I beg you let us not waste time in useless playing with words. Yes I am young, I repeat it, I am inexperienced, I have but little knowledge of the sentiments which seem to pass current in the world; feelings which appear to be ticketed like the samples of some commercial traveller, each to fit into their own compartment—one affection of the heart another of the head, another of the senses. Of all this I know nothing. I can say but one thing, I truly, and in all good faith and honesty, love your daughter; and especially, my love for her is a pure love in which the pursuit [12............