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at his side, and in the dark, quiet streets she walked
close to him, holding his arm. She herself suggested
he should take her again, she had enough money to
pay for it. The second time they joined up with two
others, a gay engaged couple, and they spent the
whole day together, the girls eating more sweets and
the boys drinking more beer than they were accus-
tomed to. * You can see it's doing him good,5 said
Wijntje to Werendonk, c he isn't always brooding
now.3 It still happened occasionally, when they
were out for a walk, that he would suddenly grow
silent, and if she then questioned him, he would
speak calmly and seriously about the future when
they should be married and all the misery forgotten.
And frequently he told her that she was a great
support, that with her beside him he couldn't fail
to keep straight. Wijntje was in no hurry to go
home ; they walked in step slowly, side by side,
and their voices sounded soft in the darkness.
In the early summer it happened more often that
he would ask his uncle for money for an evening
at the Exhibition, and Werendonk gave it liberally,
thinking that it was well earned after a long and
arduous day. Then on the following morning he
would tell them who he had been with, school-
friends he had met again or new acquaintances,
and about the fun that had kept them so late.
Once Werendonk said that it cost a lot when he went
so often, but every time that Floris asked for money