As the morning wore on, the annoyance lessened and the uneasiness grew. After all he was not sure that Julia had thrown away much by refusing to have the support of his company; had they two been there waiting for the Van Heigens' return, or had they set out together to find them, he was not sure his presence would have been any help in the face of the jealous Dutch girl's accusations. A jealous woman, even an ordinarily foolish one, is a very dangerous thing when she is attacking a fancied rival with a chance of encompassing her overthrow. Denah would have got her tale told, her case proven, indignation aroused and sympathy with her before the Van Heigens even saw Julia. He wondered what she would do alone and wished he knew how she fared; he thought over the explanations possible and the various ways out that might suggest themselves to a fertile brain. They were not many, and they were not good; the simple truth would probably be best, and that would be so exceedingly compromising under the circumstances that the Van Heigens were hardly likely to find it palatable. Indeed, he began to see that, even if they two could have presented themselves, as they had first intended, to the anxious family before Denah arrived, it was very doubtful if the matter could have been satisfactorily cleared up to a suspicious and prudish Dutch mind. The girl was only a companion, a person of no importance, easy to replace; and, no matter how the fact might be explained, it still remained that she had been out all night with an unknown man; one, who, if he were known, would show to be of a position to make the proceeding more compromising still. At this point Rawson-Clew got up and walked to the window. It was then that it struck him that he had, in these his mature years, committed an act of stupendous folly, the like of which his youth had never known.