“Could I see Pietje and speak to her? Perhaps _she_ will listen to reason,” hazarded the Dominé, controlling his wrath. The father pointed to the cottage door; then, suddenly remembering the vague possibility of future poor-relief, as yet not required, he faintly called his elder daughter’s name.
She crept out with a half-pared potato in her hand. She was a ruddy-faced girl, not uncomely in her slovenliness, like an apple that has fallen from the tree.
“Well, Pietje,” began Dominé Rovers, patiently, “so you are going to Groningen to a nice home and useful work. It is very kind, indeed, of the good lady who is willing to teach you.”
“Ah, that’s right,” cried the Dominé, with pleased surprise. “I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. So you’re going, like a good girl?”
“What do you mean, you impertinent creature?” exclaimed the minister, exceedingly irate. “Not going when you said you were. Not--”
“No, Dominé,” repeated Pietje, sitting down on the window-sill.
Dominé Rovers turned upon the recumbent father. Of course he had lost his temper; he had known all along that he would do so the consciousness of losing hold caused him to let go all the faster.
“I appeal to you,” he cried--“you, the responsible guardian of this child. Her lot is in your hands to-day for life-long weal or woe. She is incapable of choosing, and unfit to do so. It is only your selfishness, Klomp, that is ruining your daughters’ lives. You say you want them with you, I hear. A pretty excuse.”
“Yes; I love them,” murmured Klomp, sentimentally.
“And what would Mietje do?” interposed Pietje, looking up from vague contemplation of the pendent potato-peel. Mietje was the child of twelve.
This objection not being easy to meet, the Dominé ignored it. “Fine love, indeed,” he shouted to the father. “When a parent loves his child, he sacrifices any inclinations of his own to that child’s real welfare. The parent who doesn’t do that, doesn’t love. Do you understand me?”
“Then take this to heart. If you don’t send Pietje to Groningen, and make her go, you don’t love her. There!”
“Would the Dominé send Juffrouw Ursula to Groningen?” asked Pietje, askance.
“Indeed I should,” replied the Dominé, triumphantly, thinking of the Horst. “Never should I allow my own interests to influence me. Be sensible, Klomp.”