The Later Life Part 9

"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 pa.s.sed; 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 pa.s.s 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!"