It was all just as she had said; the very light and
smell seemed familiar, she must somehow have given him an idea of them
too.
Just then Vrouw Van Heigen came back, and her husband with her; she
had been to fetch him, not feeling equal to dealing with the visitor
alone. Mijnheer, by her request, had put on his best coat, but he
still had his spectacles pushed upon his forehead, as they always were
when he was disturbed in the office.
There was a formal greeting--one never dispensed with that in Holland,
then Mijnheer said, "You are, I suppose, a friend of Miss Polkington's
father?"
Rawson-Clew, remembering the winter day at Marbridge, answered, "I am
acquainted with him."
Mijnheer nodded. "Yes, yes," he said; then, "it is very sad, and much
to be regretted. I cannot but give to you, and through you to her
father, very bad news of Miss Polkington. She is not what we thought
her; she has disgraced--"
But here Rawson-Clew interrupted, but in the quiet, leisurely way
which was so incomprehensible to the Hollanders. "My dear sir," he
said, "please spare yourself the trouble of these details; I am the
man with whom Miss Polkington had the misfortune to be lost on the
Dunes."
Vrouw Van Heigen gasped; the gentle, drawling voice, the manner, the
whole air of the speaker overwhelmed her, and shattered all her
previous thoughts of the affair.
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