Not that she was troubled by Jantje's mysterious howling; indeed, she was too preoccupied to give it a second thought.
What she debated was whether she should say anything about her encounter with Frank Muller.

Young ladies are not, as a rule, too fond of informing their husbands or lovers that somebody has kissed them; first, because they know it will force them to make a disturbance and possibly to place themselves in a ridiculous position; and, secondly, because they fear lest suspicious man might take the story with a grain of salt, and suggest even that they, the kissed, were themselves to blame.

Both these reasons presented themselves to Bessie's practical mind, also a further one, namely, that he had not kissed her after all.

So on a rapid review of the whole case she came to the decision to say nothing to John about it, and only enough to her uncle to make him forbid Frank Muller the house--an unnecessary precaution, as the reader will remember.

Then, after pausing for a few seconds to pick a branch of orange blossom and to recover herself generally, which, not being hysterically inclined, she very soon did, she entered the house quietly as though nothing had happened.