[5]Poor dear!
[5]Poor dear!
"Dorine," asked Constance, "where is Papa's portrait?"
"In the boudoir."
"Oh, so Mamma has moved it! I want to see it."
She went with Dorine through the drawing-room, past the card-tables.... She noticed that the conversation at once stopped at the table where Adolphine and Uncle Ruyvenaer were playing and that her sister raised her voice and said:
"Did I deal?... Diamonds!"
"They were talking about me," thought Constance.
She went into the boudoir with Dorine: there was a card-table, with cards and markers, but there was no one in the room. Decanters and glasses, sandwiches and cakes had been put out in readiness for later.
"Papa," said Constance, softly.
She looked up at the big portrait. It was not a work of art; it was painted in the regulation, wooden style of thirty or forty years before; and it struck Constance as an ugly daub, dark and flat, in spite of all the gold on the governor-general's uniform, all the stars of the orders. The portrait represented a tall and commanding man, with a hard face and dark, stony eyes.
"I ... I used to think that portrait much finer," said Constance. "Was Papa so hard?..."
Her eyes were riveted on her father's face.... She had certainly been his favourite daughter. Her marriage to De Staffelaer, his friend, a man much older than herself, had pleased him, because it flattered his ambition.... But then, then he fell ill; he died soon after, soon after the thing that happened: that and her marriage to Van der Welcke.... Oh God, was it she who had killed him?
She drew Dorine to her:
"Tell me, Dorine.... Was Papa ill for long?"
"Yes, Connie, very long."
They were silent. They thought of their father, of his ambition, of his longing for the greatness which he achieved; of his wish to see his children also great, high-placed and powerful....
"I say, Dorine, how strange it is ... that not one of Papa's sons ..."
"What do you mean, Connie?"
"Nothing.... I don't know...."
Papa had always helped Van Naghel.... Her thoughts ran on:
"Dorine, is Karel still a burgomaster?"
"Oh, no, Connie! Karel and Cateau have been living at the Hague for years."
"And Gerrit is ... a captain?"
"Yes, in the hussars."
"I am quite out of everything.... And Ernst ... does nothing?..."
"Ernst has always been rather strange, you know; he really fights shy of people. He collects things, all sorts of things: china, books, old maps...."
"And Paul?"
"No, Paul does nothing."
"But how strange!"
"What?"
"That they have none of them done anything to distinguish themselves: none of Papa's sons...."
"But, Connie, they're all quite nice!" cried Dorine, indignantly. "Well, yes, Ernst is rather queer; and of course it's not right that Paul should do nothing...."
"I oughtn't to have said it, Dorine.... But Papa would have liked to see his children distinguished...."
Dorine felt annoyed, and at the same time, confused: distinguished, distinguished.... And her thoughts muttered within her mind, while Constance stood looking at the portrait: distinguished, distinguished.... Constance did well to talk of being distinguished!... True, she had made a great marriage: De Staffelaer, the minister at Rome, an old diplomatist, a friend of Papa's.... True, she had been distinguished, no doubt; and it had turned out nicely, her distinguished marriage. Distinguished indeed!... Could Constance really be vain still ... perhaps because she was now Baroness van der Welcke? A fine thing, that scandal with Van der Welcke!... Distinguished, distinguished ... well, no, they were none of them distinguished. But then everybody couldn't be Viceroy of the East Indies.... Constance had always had that sort of vanity; but Constance talking or thinking unkindly of her brothers, whom she hadn't seen for years, that Dorine couldnotstand, no,thatshe couldn't: they were the brothers, they were the family, they were the Van Lowes; and she couldn't stand it.... She had always stood up for Constance, for Constance was a sister, was herself a Van Lowe; but Constance must not start giving herself airs and looking down upon them with her "distinguished," her "distinguished." ... Very well, the brothers were not distinguished, but there was nothing else to be said against them, never had been; and against Constance there was!... And Dorine's voice suddenly sounded very cold, as she asked:
"Shall we go back to the drawing-room?"
Constance, however, absorbed in thought, did not notice the cold voice and took Dorine's arm. But, when she again passed Adolphine's table, she heard her call quickly, in a startled tone:
"No trumps!"
"Ss! Ss! Ss!" Uncle Ruyvenaer, who was losing, hissed between his teeth. "What a card-holder!... Constance, won't you cut in after this rubber?"
Constance was sure that they were still talking about her:
"No, thanks, Uncle; I really don't feel like playing to-night...."
Her voice sounded faint, in spite of herself.... She stopped for a moment, but, when nobody else spoke, she moved on aimlessly, leaning on Dorine's arm.... She felt contented and yet strange, in those rooms, in which she saw herself as she was on that last day, the day of her marriage with De Staffelaer; she could see herself at the wedding-breakfast and afterwards, when the time came to say good-bye.... Since then, her own people had become strangers to her.
Like a little child, she went in search of her mother, who was talking to Aunt Ruyvenaer, sat down in a chair by her and took her hand....
"Well, Constance, it is nice, to have you back again!" said Auntie, energetically, laying a firm, Indian stress on her words. "So nice for Mamma too,kassian!Where are you staying now?"
"At the Hôtel des Indes, for the present, Auntie.... As soon as Van der Welcke arrives from Brussels, we shall look out for a house."
"I am so curious to meet your husband."
Constance gave a vague laugh....
"Do you often go to India, Auntie?"
"Yes, child, almost every year: Uncle likes going ... because of the business, Daranginongan, the sugar. And then home again, on our return-tickets. Oh, it's so easy, with the French mail.... No trouble at all.... And Alima, my maid ... she knows everything ... knows Paris, the custom-office, does everything, helps Uncle with the tickets.... You should see her: dressed just like a lady, stays and all, splendid; you'd laugh till you cried!... How long did you live in Brussels?"
"We were eight years in Brussels."
"Small, Brussels, I think, compared with Paris. What made you go to Brussels? Tell me."
"Well, Auntie," laughed Constance, "we had to live somewhere! We used to travel a great deal besides. We were often on the Riviera. But suddenly I got terribly homesick for Holland, for Mamma, for all of you. Then I talked about it to Van der Welcke, about moving to the Hague; and he too was longing to get back to his country. And there was Adriaan, my boy: he's thirteen now; and we wanted him to have a Dutch education...."
"Does your son talk Dutch?"
"Of course he does, Auntie."
"What is he going to be?"
Constance hesitated:
"He'll probably enter the diplomatic service," she said, in a low voice, thinking involuntarily of her years in Rome, of De Staffelaer, of all that had separated her from her people.
"Really?" asked Mamma, greatly interested.
"Yes, Van der Welcke would like it...."
She was still holding her mother's hand; and Mrs. van Lowe sat very erect, looking pleased to have Constance back.
"Marie," said Auntie. "Do you know what I think so funny of you? You're mad on your children, mad on them. But, when you see your daughter after all these years, you let her sleep at the Hôtel des Indes! Why is that? Tell me."
"I saw Constance once or twice in Brussels," Mrs. van Lowe protested.
Constance laughed:
"But, Auntie, Mamma's like that, she has her own ways! And Adriaan, Addie, would be too much for her ... though he's a very quiet boy."
Mamma said nothing, smiled peacefully. Yes, she was like that, she had her own ways.
"I was saying to Uncle to-day," Auntie continued, "if it didn't look too funny, I'd ask Constance myself to stay with us. 'There's that Marie,' I said. 'She's got a big house and leaves her child at the Hôtel des Indes!' It's beyond me, Marie.... Constance, you must come and eat rice with me and bring your husband and your boy. Do you likenassi?"[6]
"Yes, Auntie. We shall be delighted."
Constance and Auntie stood up; Constance walked towards the conservatory. The young nephews and nieces were sitting at their round game, but had stopped playing. And Constance shrank from going farther and talking to them, for they hurriedly took up their cards again and went on playing.
And she turned away and thought:
"They were talking about me...."
The servants came in with the trays:
"Who'll have a sandwich? Uncle, shall I mix you a drink?" asked Dorine, moving restlessly about the rooms.
[6]Rice.
[6]Rice.
Yes, she had longed for them all, for her home and for Holland! Oh, the passionate longing of those last years, ever and ever more passionate! Oh, how lonely she had been, and how she had pined for Holland, for the Hague, for her relations! During all those years, she had been an outcast from her home, an exile, as it were, during all those long, hungry years. Twenty years she had spent abroad! For five of them she had been married to De Staffelaer, the five years in Rome, and then ... oh, the one mistake of her life! Ah, how she had pined since that mistake, incessantly!... And, after the child was born, she had pined incessantly.... Yes, for thirteen years she had pined! During all that time, she had seen her mother twice, for a couple of days, because travelling was such an effort for Mamma, because she herself dared not go to the Hague, which was so near, so near!
Her brothers, her sisters, her whole family had denied her all that time, had never been able to forgive the scandal which she had caused, the blot which she had cast on their name....
She was a girl of twenty-one when she married De Staffelaer. He was an intimate friend of Papa's: they had been at the University together and belonged to the same club. Now De Staffelaer was Netherlands minister at Rome: a good-looking, hale old man; fairly well-suited to his post: not a political genius, like Papa, she thought; but still full of qualities, as Papa had always said. She was Papa's favourite; and he had thought it so pleasant, was proud that De Staffelaer had just fallen in love with her, like a young man, and been unable to keep away from the Alexanderstraat when he came to Holland, to the Hague, once a year, on leave. She remembered Papa's smile when he talked to her about De Staffelaer, hinting at what might happen.... They had then been living for five years at the Hague, after Papa had been governor-general for five years.... She remembered the viceregal period—three years of her girlhood from twelve to seventeen—remembered the grandeur of it all: the palaces at Batavia and Buitenzorg; their country-house at Tjipanas; the balls at which she danced, young as she was; the races; the aides-de-camp; the great goldpajong:[7]all the tropical grandeur and semi-royalty of a great colonial governorship.... After that, at the Hague, a quieter time, but still their crowded receptions, their great dinners to Indian and home celebrities; Bertha back from India, with Van Naghel; she herself presented at Court.... She loved that life and, from the time when she was quite a young girl, had known nothing but glamour around her.... Papa, too, breathed in that element of grandeur: a man of great political capacity, as she thought, never realizing that Papa had merely risen through tact; through mediocrity; through a certain opportune vagueness in his political creed, which was curved and shaded with every half-curve and half-shade that the needs of the moment might dictate; through good-breeding, through the eloquence of his meaningless, easy-flowing sentences, full of the high-sounding commonplaces of the day; through his suavity and suppleness, his smiling amiability, all the personal charm of him. She had always seen her father important; she saw him so still. And she herself, at that time, longed for importance, for every sort of worldly vanity: she had it in her blood. As a young girl, she loved brilliancy, titles; loved spacious, well-lighted rooms, fine carriages; loved to see men in stars and ribbons, ladies in court-dress; loved to curtsey very low before the King and Queen: the little Princess Wilhelmina was then still a baby.... Thanks to De Staffelaer, their receptions were sometimes attended by members of thecorps diplomatiqueand of that particular set at the Hague which fastens on to the diplomatists: the little band of people who, at the Hague, are stared and gaped at wherever they go, who talk loudly at the opera, swaggering in all the arrogance of their smartness and conceit, looking down upon all and everything that does not form part of their own little set and encouraged in their blatant self-assertion by the Hague public, with its flattering tribute of open-mouthed curiosity. She did not see all this, especially as a young girl: she thought it grand if a Spanish marquis or a German count, a member of one of the legations, showed himself for ten minutes at her parents' receptions; and, if Mrs. This or the Freule[8]That, of "the set," came for only five minutes, Constance would brag about it, with an assumption of indifference, for the next three months. Vanity was born in her blood and had been nourished at Batavia and Buitenzorg, where she was made much of as the young daughter of the governor-general. Now, at the Hague, full-fledged, she struggled, above all, to be invited to the drawing-rooms of "the set." It was very difficult, though Bertha and she had been presented at Court, though her parents still had ever so many connections. She was constantly encountering coldness on the part of "the set," coupled with great incivility, which she had to swallow; but she had some of Papa's tact and she went on struggling: she left cards on Mrs. This to all eternity, with a snobbishness for which she came to blush later; she bowed and talked pleasantly, to all eternity, to the Freule That, receiving nothing in return but a snub. She had found that the Hague was not the same as Batavia; that, though you had been the highest personage at Batavia, you were not so easily admitted into that very high circle of the Hague, "the set." ...
Now, she laughed softly at all this, after that first family-evening, sitting in her room at the hotel, while her boy slept.... Yes, Papa had always smiled because De Staffelaer was so much in love with her; and she herself had thought it delicious to be wooed by this diplomatist, with his ribbons and stars, by this smiling, courtly man of sixty, who did not look a day more than fifty. And, when he asked Papa for her hand, she accepted him, very glad and happy, a little flushed and triumphant, rather inclined to preen herself in the delectable atmosphere of congratulation; she was now, thanks to De Staffelaer, decidedly a member of "the set" and, at the same time, did not need "the set" so very much, now that she was going to Rome, to spend her life in circles such as that of the Quirinal and the "white" Roman world.... She had attained her aim. She had a charming husband, not young, but none the less passionately in love with her and vain, in his turn, of his young and pretty wife. She had a title. She had money enough, even though De Staffelaer's affairs were somewhat involved. She found the Court balls at Rome more splendid than the routs at the Hague; she was introduced to all sorts of great names. The Italian aristocracy, it is true, was even more exclusive than that of the Hague; but she moved in a brilliant circle of diplomatists and foreigners. Only, she was struck by the fact that, abroad, the members of thecorps diplomatiquewere not stared at so much as in the opera at the Hague or on the terrace at Scheveningen. It almost annoyed her: she would have liked to be stared at in her turn. But, in the society of a big capital like Rome, the wife of the Netherlands minister, even though she was young and pretty and well-dressed, was not so important a person as the Marquesa This, of the Spanish Legation, or Mrs. This or the Freule That, of "the set," was at the Hague. People did not stare at her, in Rome; and this was almost a disappointment.... Besides, her increasing and often wounded vanity left a certain void within her, a sense of boredom. De Staffelaer, ever courtly, pleasant and in love, with the apprehensive love of an old man for the young wife whom he is afraid lest he should soon cease to attract, ended by irritating her and upsetting her nerves....
But this, at the time, was nothing more—nor anything more serious—than boredom and vague discontent.... Since then, life had set its mark on Constance. Often now, as a woman of forty-two, she felt a dull melancholy in pondering on her life; she let her life, one woman's life, glide past her gaze once more; she began with her childish years in India; saw once more the splendour and grandeur of Buitenzorg; criticized her own vanity during her girlhood at the Hague; saw her marriage as the great mistake of her life; saw, as the second, irrevocable mistake of her life, all that had happened with Van der Welcke.... Her life had been warped beyond remedy. She had gone from vanity to wantonness, to reckless play-acting with that life, big with fate, which she had first seen only as a dazzling reflection, a reflection of mirrors, candles, satin, jewels, titles and orders: the setting of the play; a little flirtation, a little jesting—not even always witty—with smart men of the world, refined and elegant in their dress-clothes, who assumed airs of mysterious importance about the great affairs of kings and countries, affairs which were settled by just two or three supermen in Berlin, London or St. Petersburg, while most of the others, the exquisites, gave weighty decisions on a matter of ceremony, a visit, a card with or without the corner turned down, a little matter of etiquette, trivialities around which their whole existence and that of their wives revolved. She, too, had given weighty decisions in all these matters: a three weeks' mourning for this royal highness; an eight days' mourning—very light, with a touch of white—for that royal highness; and her life was so full of all this ado about nothing that she had hardly had time to reflect. In Rome, as the wife of the Netherlands minister, with some pretensions to lead the cosmopolitan circle which here and there touched upon that of the exclusive Roman aristocracy, she was so busy with her hairdresser and her tailor, with shopping in the morning, half-a-dozen visits and a charitymatinéein the afternoon, a Court ball at night, followed by a little supper: so busy that it affected her health and often left her tired and pale. But she had grudged none of it, so long as she saw her name mentioned with the others in the newspapers. And, when, in the midst of all this empty glamour, in the midst of all this empty bustle, she met Van der Welcke, the new young secretary of the Netherlands Legation, and, of course, saw him nearly every day, she had allowed him to make love to her, just because a couple of her friends declared that he was making love to her and because a serious flirtation, a passion, formed part of the game, as it were. And then, in very elegant language, she had complained to Van der Welcke of the void in her life and said all sorts of fine things about soul-hunger and life-weariness, without knowing anything about soul-hunger or life-weariness and remembering that she had to go to her dressmaker, that afternoon, and to two receptions and that she had her own reception in the evening. Then she parroted bits out of a French novel, acted a scene or two after the same model, thinking it time to bring a little literature into her life. He, a good-looking fellow—short and well-knit, sturdy without being clumsy, with a pair of boyish blue eyes, a shapely, round head with lightly-curling, short, brown hair, like a head of Hermes, and still exceedingly young—thought that it would look well for him to make a little love to his chief's wife, without going any farther, of course.... But it was impossible for them to play with fire unscathed, in an atmosphere like that of Rome. They saw so many French novels acted around them that, quite involuntarily, they began to feel not only like a modern hero and heroine of fiction or a pair of fashionable actors, but what they were: a young man and a young woman; she the wife of a man old enough to be her father. What had started with a compliment and a laugh—because of what her friends had told her—led to a warmer pressure of the hand, not once but many times, the abandonment of a waltz, a kiss and the rest.... They both glided towards sin gradually, as though inevitably. She was at first greatly surprised at herself and annoyed and, for the first time in her life, felt the danger of playing with life ... especially when she, who had never loved, fell in love with the man who had acted with her in this drawing-room comedy and turned it to earnest. In her soul, choked with vanity and false glamour, one genuine emotion now sprang up: she fell in love with Van der Welcke. She did not love him for any quality of soul or heart or temperament, but she loved him all the same, loved him as a young woman loves a young man, with all the blind impulse of her womanhood. Her feeling for him was primitive and simple, but it was whole-souled and true. Until now, she had cared for nothing but Mrs. This or Freule That, of "the set;" the ceremonial splendour of the Court; dinners, dresses, decorations; and all sorts of important matters concerning visits and visiting-cards. Now, she cared for a human being, a man, not for the sake of a wedding-ceremony, or stars and ribbons, or visits of congratulation, but simply so that she might hold him in her arms. She felt something real blossoming within her; and the feeling was so strange to her that it made her anxious and unhappy. Their love was anxious, their love became unhappy, as though it had a foreboding of all their hidden fate. They both heard it, the heavy footfall of their fate. It was as though, at their meetings, in their most passionate embraces, they listened outside to the rustle of one spying on them ... and to that heavy footfall of their fate. And, from the French novel, with its seasoned intrigue that seemed to suit them so well, their love turned into the real tragedy of their lives. She had envious enemies, jealous because she had given a finer dinner than they, jealous of a handsomer dress. De Staffelaer was first warned by anonymous letters. Then a footman whom he had occasion to rebuke flung it in his face that mevrouw was carrying on with meneer the secretary.... He traced their place of assignation. He found Van der Welcke there, while Constance had just time to escape down a back staircase. Amid this damning confusion, Van der Welcke's denial was tantamount to a confession....
Of course, the scandal was spread abroad at once, in Holland as well as in Rome. A divorce followed. Constance was condemned by her family and cast out, left as it were homeless.... She always fancied that the scandal had been Papa's death: a year later, he pined away, died, slowly, from the effects of a stroke, broken-hearted over the stain which his favourite daughter had cast upon all the blameless decorum of the aristocrat and statesman that he was. She was left as it were homeless, with a small allowance from De Staffelaer, which she refused as soon as she was able to do without it....
Then she saw Van der Welcke come to her, to Florence, where she had, so to speak, taken sanctuary. But he did not come to her of his own accord; he came sent, forced to go, by his father. For his father would not suffer him to go his own way and leave this woman to her misery. As she had given herself to him, his father ordered him, in his turn, to give up all to her: his name and his career.
Henri van der Welcke had been brought up, from childhood, to yield unquestioning obedience to his parents. His father and mother were both descended from those strict, religious, doughty, aristocratic Dutch families to which the Hague "set" is a thorn in the flesh; and they had judged the matter thus, with rigid and scrupulous justice, as a duty before God and man. And their heir, at this, the supreme moment of his life, once more showed himself a dutiful son. He obeyed his parents' command. He resigned his post, broke off his young career. He went to Constance, telling her that his parents had sent him; but, in their mutual misery, they still seemed to find some love for each other in what remained of their first passion. She was too desperate to indulge in long reflection or to decline the way of escape which he offered her. As they could not be married at once by Dutch law, they were married in London as soon as it was possible. Constance wrote to Henri's parents to express her gratitude; but they did not answer her letter. They refused to know her, refused to see her. They had sacrificed their son to her, because they thought it their duty before God; and they had made this heavy sacrifice, because they were religious people, honest, righteous people; but their hearts were bitter against Constance: they would never forgive her the sacrifice which their honesty, their righteousness had required of them, the parents....
Henri and Constance had lived in England, travelled in Italy and ended by settling down in Brussels. Their son was born; the years passed. Slowly, in Brussels, they made acquaintances, made friends; and, in the course of years, those acquaintances and friends dispersed. Twice, amid heavy emotion, they had seen Mamma van Lowe in Brussels for a couple of days at a time: the other members of the family never. The lonely years dragged on. They both came to look upon their lives as one great mistake. Constance' vanity, moreover, resented the dull existence which they led; Henri, who was four years younger than his wife, was for ever regretting that he had sacrificed his future to this woman at his parents' behest. They were fettered to each other in the narrow prison of marriage. Passion dead, the despairing illusion of love killed, they had never been able to accommodate themselves to each other; and without mutual accommodation there is no happiness in marriage. Whatever they said or thought or did led to discord. Their lives were never in step, but stumbled and shambled and shuffled along. Every word spoken by the one was an offence to the other: they could not endure each other's going and coming. Latterly, they could not speak but their speech caused a quarrel. Between them stood the child, still the child of their love. But the Child did not unite them, was a cause of jealousy to both. They grudged each other their offspring. He could not bear to see his son in her arms; she could not bear to see her boy on his knee. He turned pale when she kissed the boy; she cried with envy when he took him for a walk. Yet they did not think of a separation, deeming the thought ridiculous, not so much for the world as, above all, for themselves. They would continue to bear their fetters together, until their death, in hatred.
The intolerable nature of their existence was enough to give Constance a feeling of home-sickness for Holland. The last few years in Brussels, now that their acquaintances were scattered, had been so lonely, so melancholy, so forlorn, so bitter, so full of dislike, hatred, envy of Henri, that she yearned for consolation, for some sort of love that would come to her with open arms and understand and pity her. There were days when she did not utter a word, after a scene with Henri, until Adriaan threw his arms about her, while she burst out sobbing on his childish breast. The boy, in other respects a sturdy lad, had his nerves so much shaken by this open conflict between his parents that he often fell ill.
Then both Henri and Constance, greatly alarmed, would suggest parting from Adriaan, for the boy's own good, so that he might not be a witness to their inevitable disputes. But they were both too weak. In their intolerable life Adriaan was the only alleviation. And neither of them had ever been able to resolve upon this parting; both merely promised themselves to exercise restraint in future, so that the boy might not suffer....
Gradually, Constance had talked more and more about Holland, confessed that she was yearning for all those whom she had left behind. She longed for them all: her mother, her brothers, her sisters. She yearned for affection, for family-affection, for the fostering warmth and love and sympathy of a large circle of relations, who would show her the kindness which she had known of old, at Buitenzorg, at the Hague. And Van der Welcke also began to feel that strange nostalgia which urges a man towards the land of his birth, of his own tongue, of his kindred. Weary of living abroad, he fell in with Constance' view, really because of a chance word from Addie, who also often had the word Holland on his lips; the father was now thinking of his child's future.... But they must first learn how the family would receive them. Van der Welcke wrote to his parents, Constance to Mamma van Lowe. They wrote with all the humility of exiles; once more asked for forgiveness, after those fourteen years; said that they were longing to see their country again, their parents, brothers, sisters, to enjoy the sweet happiness of living where they would be at home. Both had felt the old inviolable bonds drawing them towards Holland, as though there were something which they needed before they could grow old and be a father and mother to their son.... Henri's parents had not yet written, did not at once reply to his question whether they could not forgive him now that those long, long years were past, whether they would not receive his wife, who, after all, was their daughter-in-law, who, after all, was the mother of his son, their grandchild. But Mamma van Lowe had sent Constance a sweet and loving letter, a letter which Constance had kissed, which had made her sob with happiness. Mamma had written that her child was to come to her, that all was forgiven, all forgotten, that the brothers and sisters would receive her with open arms. And she had expressed her own delight, as the old mother, who found it so difficult to get about, who disliked travelling, though it was but a two or three hours' journey to Brussels, and hated being so far from her child, for Constance was her child, in spite of all. Then Constance could restrain herself no longer and, without waiting for the letter from Henri's father and mother, had gone on ahead with Adriaan. Henri remained behind to settle a few matters of business: he was to follow in a week.
And Holland, yonder, so near and yet so long unattainable, was to them as a land of promise, a land of peace, of happiness long-deferred, where they would find, for themselves and for their son, all that of which they had been starved for years and years: parents and relations, old friends and acquaintances and, as the very essence of it all, that fragrant Dutch atmosphere, so indescribable and yet, as they now realized, craved for by their parched and famished souls. Both, as with one thought, had suddenly, for all the discord of their lives, known as a certainty, both for themselves and their son, that, to grow old and be a father and mother to their boy, they must return to their country, to which they were attached by those strange, mysterious and long-unsuspected bonds which may be denied for years, but which end by reasserting themselves, irrefragably, for ever and all time....
[7]Umbrella or parasol.
[7]Umbrella or parasol.
[8]The title borne by noblemen's unmarried daughters.
[8]The title borne by noblemen's unmarried daughters.
It was Sunday afternoon.
"We must re-ally, Ka-rel, pay a coup-le of vis-its, this af-ter-noon," drawled Cateau van Lowe.
Karel assented: it was visiting-day.
"Where?" he asked.
She named one or two acquaintances:
"And then we must al-so go to Aunt and Un-cle Ruyvenaer; it's their turn.... And then, Ka-rel, to your sis-ter, to Con-stance...."
"Hadn't we better wait till Van der Welcke's there? Otherwise we shall have to go again."
"I don't think it looks friend-ly ... to wait till Van der Wel-cke comes.... Mammadidset us the exam-ple, Ka-rel, you know."
"Then wouldn't it be better, Cateau, for you to go alone first: then I can call on Van der Welcke later. Or do you think I ought to wait until Van der Welcke has been to see me?"
"We won't cal-culate it quite so close-ly as allthat," said Cateau, generously. "It looks as if we were not friend-ly.... It would be bet-ter if you came with meto-day, Karel."
So they decided both to call on Constance that afternoon; and they were on the point of starting when the bell rang and Adolphine van Saetzema entered:
"What a nui-sance," thought Cateau. "Now the carriage will ab-solute-ly have to wait."
It was raining; and this meant that the brougham would get wet. The horse was jobbed; the coachman did not count: he was only a man.
"Ah, Adolph-ine! Thisisnice of you...."
"I see your carriage is at the door.... Are you going out?"
"Yes, pres-ently, to pay a visit ... or two...."
"So am I. But don't let me keep you. I am going to Constance this afternoon."
"So are we."
"Oh, are you? I would really rather have waited till she had called on me."
"Oh," said Cateau, "it looks as if we weren't friend-ly, to cal-culate it so close-ly, don't you think, Adolph-ine? But do sit down, Adolph-ine."
Adolphine sat down, for she was paying Karel and Cateau a visit; and, if she had not sat down, the visit would not have been paid, would not have counted as a visit. Perhaps that was also the reason why Karel and Cateau urged Adolphine to sit down: otherwise, she would have been obliged to come back another day.
They all sat down: the brother, the sister, the sister-in-law. Outside, the rain was pouring in torrents; and already the brougham was glistening with the wet: Cateau's saucer-eyes watched every drop through the curtains. The usual drawing-room talk began:
"What terrible wea-ther, isn't it, Adolph-ine?"
"Terrible."
Adolphine was thin, angular, envious, badly-dressed. Beside the prosperous, opulent respectability of Karel and Cateau, sleek with good living, heavy with comfort, radiating money and ease—Karel in his thick frieze great-coat, Cateau in a rich silk dress and a rich fur-trimmed jacket, with a rich toque crowning her round, pink-and-white, full-moon face—Adolphine looked shabby, peevish and pretentious. The stuff of her clothes could not compare with Cateau's, which were eloquent of money, good, substantial money; and yet Adolphine had certain pretentions to fashion and elegance. A thin, straggling boa wound its length around her neck. Her fringe, out of curl because of the wet, hung in rats'-tails from under a shabby little hat, draped in a limp veil. It was as though Adolphine felt this, for she said, enviously:
"I didn't trouble to put on anything decent, in this beastly rain."
Cateau looked meaningly at the carriage outside:
"So you're going to Con-stance' al-so?..."
"Yes. But when will Van der Welcke be here? Saetzema is waiting to pay his visit until Van der Welcke comes...."
"You see?" said Karel to Cateau.
"Oh?" asked Cateau, drawling her words more than ever. "Is Saet-zema wait-ing until Van der Wel-cke comes?... Oh, I told Karel to come with me because, per-haps, it wouldn't look friend-ly.... What do you think of Con-stance, Adolphine? Karel thinks his sis-ter so al-tered, so al-tered...."
"Yes, she's altered. She has grown old, very old," said Adolphine, who, herself four years younger than Constance, looked decidedly older.
"Oh, I don't know!" said Karel, trying to defend his sister. "You would never say she was forty-two...."
"Oh, is she forty-two?" drawled Cateau.
"I'll tell you what I think," said Adolphine. "I don't think Constance looks a bit distinguished."
When Adolphine was envious and jealous—and that was generally—she said the exact opposite of what she thought in her heart.
"Not a bit distinguished!" she repeated, with conviction. "There is something in the way she does her hair, in those rings of hers—I don't know—something not quite respectable...."
"Yes, something foreign," said Karel, feebly, by way of an excuse.
"I think," said Cateau, "Con-stance has something about her that's not quite prop-er...."
"Oh," said Adolphine, "but propriety isn't her strong point!"
"Never was," grinned Karel, in his turn.
"If she had only stayed in Brussels!" snapped Adolphine.
"Ah!" said Cateau, opening big owl's eyes. "Doyouthink sotoo?"
"Yes. And you?"
"So dowe, re-ally," drawled Cateau, more cheerfully, forgetting the brougham waiting in the wet.
"Yes," said Adolphine, with conviction. "What are we to do with a sister like that?"
"Whom you can't let any one meet," growled Karel under his breath.
"Oh, dear!" whined Cateau to Adolphine. "Doyouthink sotoo?"
"And," said Adolphine, "mark my words, you'll see, she's full of pretensions. You know the sort of thing," with an envious wave of the hand. "Society ... pushing herself ... perhaps even going to Court."
"No!" drawled Cateau. "Sure-ly forthat, even Constance would have too muchtact."
"I'm not so sure!" growled Karel.
Unlike Bertha and Constance, Adolphine had not been presented at Court, because, after Constance' marriage Papa and Mamma van Lowe, feeling old and tired, had taken to living more quietly. She could never forgive them for it.
"No!" droned Cateau. "But then you are such a regular, good,Dutchwife and mo-ther, Adolph-ine. That's what I al-ways say to Ka-rel."
Adolphine looked flattered.
"Yes, but," said Karel, by way of excuse, "you mustn't look to Constance for what she has never been. She went straight to Rome after her first marriage."
"Those Court circles are always fast," Adolphine declared.
"And then, inRome," cried Cateau, clasping her fat hands, "suchthings hap-pen!"
Adolphine rose: her visit was paid. She had a great deal more to talk about, among others the way in which Bertha had, so to speak, forced her daughter Emilie into her engagement with Van Raven; but it was growing late: she took her leave. Karel and Cateau went straight to the brougham:
"Oh, de-ar!" said Cateau, in a startled voice. "How wet the carriage has got!"
They drove to pay their visits. First, they drove to the Ruyvenaers: Karel rang; fortunately, Uncle and Aunt were out. Cards for Uncle and Aunt. Next—Cateau consulted her list—to Mrs. van Friesesteijn, an old friend of Mrs. van Lowe's. At home. A cantankerous, shrivelled little old lady, always alert for news:
"Glad to see you, Cateau. Sit down, Van Lowe. So, Constance is back, I hear."
"Ye-es," drawled Cateau, "it's ve-ry unpleas-ant forus."
"And how is Constance?"
"Oh, she's all right," said Karel, casually.
"You see, me-vrouw," droned Cateau, "she's Karel's sis-ter,isn'tshe?"
"So you're all receiving her?"
"Yes, because of Mamma, you know."
"And Bertha too?"
"Ye-e-es, Berth-a, too."
"And will she go to Court again, do you think?"
"Well, Adolph-ine said that she'd besureto go toCourtagain."
"I think that's wrong of Constance," said the old lady, sharply, inquisitively, eager for a bit of scandal. "And Bertha's Emilie is soon to be married."
"Ye-es. And Adolph-ine's Floor-tje too."
"I hear Emilie is to have a splendid trousseau," said the old lady. "Floortje's will be much less grand, I suppose?"
"Not sofine," drawled Cateau. "But still ve-rynice. What terrible wea-ther, me-vrouw!... Come, Ka-rel, we must be go-ing on...."
In the brougham again. Next visit to Mr. and Mrs. IJkstra, cousins of Cateau, who was born an IJkstra:
"How d'ye do, Pie-ie-iet? How d'ye do, An-na?"
"How d'ye do, Cateau? How d'ye do, Karel? So Constance is back?"
"Yes. Whatdoyou thi-i-i-ink of it? And theyallsay ev-erywhere, that she is go-ing to Court."
"Oh!"
"Nonsense!"
"Yes, Adolph-ine said so ... and so did Mrs. van Frie-sesteijn."
"How mad of Mrs. van der Welcke, with that past of hers!"
"Perhaps it's her husband who wants to go."
"Oh, no doubt it's her husband."
"And how does she look?"
"Oh, so-so! Of course, she's Ka-rel's sis-ter, but I think her not so ve-ry distin-guished."
"Oh, well, I think her rather smart!" growled Karel, a little crossly.
"Oh, Ka-rel!... Well,smart, if you like, but not what I call good ta-aste."
"Rather foreign, I suppose?" asked Anna IJkstra.
"Ye-es. And so manyrings:that's what I don't like. And herhair:all curled and waved, puffedrightout, you know. So ridic-ulous ... because she's ve-ry grey, you know...."
"Oh, really!"
"Yes. What terrible wea-ther, An-na.... We ought to be go-ing on, Ka-rel."
"Where?" growled Karel.
"To the Van Ra-vens."
"Oh, no!" muttered Karel. "It's raining so.... And I have to get out all the time and ring the bell."
"But haven't you a footman?" asked Anna, pretending not to know.
"I say, what next!" muttered Karel. "A footman, indeed!"
"But, Ka-rel, in that case, let us just go on to Constance."
"Oh, are you going to Mrs. van der Welcke's?"
"Yes, we must re-ally pay her a vis-it, to-day...."
"Well, come along then!" growled Karel, who was irritable without knowing why.
And they drove to the Hôtel des Indes. The porter left them in the hall for a moment, then showed them up.
"How nice of you to come!" said Constance. She was genuinely pleased. "And in this awful weather! But, as you see, you have to come up to my bedroom. I have no sitting-room; and the drawing-room is such a bore. Really, it's very nice of you to come," she repeated, "and in this rain, too! Adriaan!"
"Yes, Mamma!"
"Here are Uncle Karel and Aunt Cateau."
She beckoned to the boy to come from his room. She was smiling with happiness, glad to see the faces of her brother and her sister-in-law, longing for the sympathy of family-affection, though she had not known Cateau in the old days.
"Ah, is that yourboy, Con-stance?... Well, heisa big boy!"
"How d'ye do, Aunt? How d'ye do, Uncle?" said the lad, a little coldly and haughtily.
"Is he like his father?" asked Karel.
"Yes," said Constance, grudgingly.
Karel and Cateau looked at Adriaan. The boy stood bolt upright before them, a strikingly handsome lad: he certainly resembled his father; he had Van der Welcke's regular features, his round head, his short, soft, curly hair. At thirteen, an age when other boys are overgrown, gawky and clumsy in their ways, he was not tall, but well-proportioned and rather broadly built, with a pair of square shoulders in his blue serge jacket, with something about his gestures and movements that denoted a certain manliness and self-possession, uncommon in so young a boy. He tried to be polite, but could not conceal a certain mistrust of this unknown uncle and aunt. His small mouth was firmly closed; his eyes stared fixedly, dark-blue, serious and cold.
Constance made her sister-in-law and brother sit down:
"Forgive all this muddle," she said with a laugh. "I was taking advantage of the rainy day to arrange my trunks a bit."
Cateau gave a sharp glance round: there were dresses hanging over the chairs and from the pegs; a couple of hats lay on a table.
"Oh, Con-stance!" said Cateau; and she felt a little impertinent at saying, "Constance," just like that—she had married Karel after Constance' marriage to De Staffelaer and this was only the second time that she had seen her sister-in-law—and had it on her lips to say, "Mevrouw," instead. "Oh, Con-stance,what a lotof clothes you have!"
"Do you think so? Things get so spoilt in one's trunks."
"Ihaven't as many dress-es as that,haveI, Ka-rel? ButwhatI have is re-ally good. But yours are good,too, Con-stance. I like re-ally good clothes.... Only, such a lot oflacewould fid-get me.... Bertha dresses well, too.... But Adolph-ine.... Oh, what asightshe al-ways looks!"
"Does she?" asked Constance. "But she has to consider the cost of things, hasn't she?"
"I have only two dress-es every year; but those are re-ally good."
"And will Van der Welcke be here soon?" asked Karel.
"On Tuesday. Then we shall look round for a house. I do think it so delightful to be back at the Hague, among all of you. I see Mamma every day. Yesterday, I was at Bertha's: a busy household, isn't it? I came plump into the middle of all sorts of rehearsals, for the wedding. And I was at Gerrit's: Adeline is a dear; and oh, how I laughed, how I laughed! What a lot of children! I can't tell them one from the other yet. But how charming and delightful, that fair-haired little woman, with that fair-haired little troop; and she's expecting another baby this summer! And Dorine is nice too.... Oh, you don't know, you don't know how glad I am to see you all! We are a big family and life at the Hague is so busy.... Look at Bertha.... And Gerrit and Adeline too are busy with their little troop.... But I do hope to take my place among you all again. It is so long since I saw you all! Ah, I didn't want to force things! Mamma did come to see me twice in Brussels. But my brothers and sisters ... No, it wasn't kind of you! But I daresay it had to be! Things were as they were! You couldn't very well respect me, you had to disown me, it couldn't be helped!... I suffered tortures, all those years! I never had any one to talk to, except him, my little son! It wasn't right of Mamma, was it, Addie, to be always talking to you? But I couldn't speak out to Henri, to Van der Welcke. Oh, we are very good friends, quite good friends!... I can't tell you how, all of a sudden, I longed for the Hague, for my family, for the people I used to know, for all of you, for everything! I always wrote to Mamma regularly; and Mamma gave me all the news, sent me the photographs of my little nephews and nieces. And yet my brain's whirling, now that I am seeing you all. There are such a lot of us: I don't think there can be many families as big as ours. Bertha's alone is a big household.... Fancy Bertha a grandmother!... It's dreadful, how old we're growing! I am forty-two! Oh, I couldn't have gone on living in Brussels! We had no one left there: our friends were scattered, gone away. Van der Welcke, too, was beginning to long for Holland, for Addie's sake as well as his own. Addie speaks very good Dutch, though: I always made him keep it up. He has a bit of a Flemish accent, perhaps: what do you think, Addie?... We had a Flemish servant.... Oh, what a lot I have to tell you!" she laughed, happily. "Nothing interesting, you know, but I feel as if I must tell you everything, talk and talk and talk to you, to all of you, my brothers, my sisters!" She suddenly got up. "Karel, do you remember, in India, how we used to play in the river, behind the Palace; how we walked on those great stone boulders, you and I and Gerrit? We three always played together. Yes, Bertha had been married a year or two, while we were still children. Is Bertha fifty yet? She's quite grey! I'm going grey myself!... Dear Bertha!... And Louis and Gertrude, who died at Buitenzorg.... Do you remember, Karel? It was we three who were always together. You used to carry me over the water on your back. How naughty we were! I was quite thirteen or fourteen, at that time.... And things are so funny, in India: next year, I was in long frocks and going to the balls.... I thought it delightful, all that grandeur: the aides-de-camp; the national anthem wherever we went: I used to imagine that they played it for me, the viceroy's little daughter!... Yes, Van Naghel was at the bar then, at Semarang; Bertha didn't come in for any of it.... Oh, it's past now, my vanity! That shows you how a person changes. You are changed, too, Karel: you have become so sedate, so dignified. What a pity you are no longer a burgomaster: you're cut out for it, Karel!"
She tried to speak lightly, suddenly feeling that she was talking too much about herself, letting herself go, while Karel and Cateau sat staring at her. And yet she cared for them: was not Karel her brother, who had always been bracketed with Gerrit in her childhood memories, and was not Cateau his wife, though she had not a sympathetic face, with those great round eyes of hers? Were they not members of the family, for which she had longed so? She tried to speak playfully, after her all-too-spontaneous outpouring; but she suddenly felt that this was out of tune too. She felt that, after all, she had not seen her brother for twenty years, not since the day of her marriage to De Staffelaer, and that they had become as utter strangers to each other. She felt that she did not know Cateau at all. And so, though Karel and Cateau were her brother and sister, they were also strangers. But that was just what she did not want: she wanted to win them all, the whole family; to feel that they were all warm-hearted and indulgent towards her.... And she spoke of Mamma, of the Sunday evenings, of Mamma's mania for the family, which she herself now felt so strongly, intensified as it had been in those lonely, joyless Brussels years. She asked their advice about taking a house at the Hague.
"The best thing you can do is to consult an estate-agent," said Karel. "There's one close by; he'll know about all the houses to let."
"It will be difficult to find the right thing," said Constance. "We had a pretty flat at Brussels; and I really prefer a flat to a house. But there aren't any in Holland."
"Oh, Con-stance!" said Cateau, round-eyed. "Don't you find a flat ve-ry stuff-y?"
"Not at all; and I love to have everything on one floor. I don't care for maids running up and down the stairs."
"Yes, but the placemustbe keptclean."
"Well, it was.... Only, in a flat, abroad, the bell doesn't keep ringing as it does at one's front-door in Holland. The cook goes to market in the morning...."
"And does she just buy ev-erything?"
"She buys enough for a couple of days: vegetables and eggs and whatever she wants."
"Do you leave that to thecook?"
"Oh, yes! Imagine if I didn't!" laughed Constance. "She simply couldn't understand it! I used only to give her a few instructions."
"Well, Imustsay that I don't think that atalla prop-er way of house-keeping!... Doyou, Kar-el?"
"It's the way of the country," growled Karel, under his breath. "Were you thinking of looking for a house in one of the new districts, Duinoord, for instance?"
"I'd rather not be so far from all of you."
"Dear Con-stance!" laughed Cateau, with her round face. "But wealllive more or lessfarfrom one ano-ther!"
There was a knock at the door: the porter showed Adolphine in.
"Ah, Adolphine! How nice of you to come, all the more as we are to meet at Mamma's this evening. You're a good sister." And she kissed Adolphine. "This is my boy. I brought him to see you the other day, but you were out."
"How d'ye do, Aunt?" said Addie, stiffly.
"Forgive the muddle, Adolphine. I was just unpacking my trunks."
"We ought re-ally to be go-ing on, Ka-rel."
"Are you going so soon?"
"Yes, it's rain-ing so; and the brougham is getting so we-et."
"Constance," said Karel. "Did you say that Van der Welcke would be here on Tuesday?"
"I expect so."
"Well, then, give him my kind regards and ... and would you give him my card? Then that'll be all right."
He took a visiting-card from his pocket-book and laid it on a corner of the console-table. Constance looked at him in momentary perplexity. She could not speak for a second or two, did not understand. She herself had been brought up and had lived according to very punctilious rules of card-leaving; but yet she failed to understand how one brother-in-law could leave a card on another brother-in-law, before that other was in town and during a visit paid in his sister's bedroom, amid all the muddle of her unpacked trunks. But she had been so long away from Holland and the Hague; she did not wish it to appear that she did not understand; and, as a woman of the world, she did not, above all, wish it to appear that she thought Karel's performance with the card not only stiff, but intensely vulgar.
She said, with a gentle smile.
"Thank you, Karel. Van de Welcke will appreciate your call greatly."
Her voice sounded friendly and natural; and neither Karel nor Cateau had any idea that Constance had controlled herself as she had sometimes had to control herself in Rome, in a diplomaticsalonfull of intrigue and polished envy.
In the brougham, Cateau said:
"You did that very clev-erly, Ka-rel, with that card...."
"Yes, I thought it the best way," said Karel, in a burgomasterly manner.
Adolphine looked enviously around her. What a lot Constance must spend on her clothes; and it was not as if they were well off either, for all they had to live on was an allowance from Papa and Mamma van der Welcke, the money which Constance had inherited from her father and the little that Van der Welcke could scrape together at Brussels, as a wine- and insurance-agent. Nothing to speak of, all told: that Adolphine knew for a fact. She admired in particular a magnificent fur bolero and wondered what two kinds of fur it was made of; but she said nothing: she never praised anything in another, not his raiment, nor his intellect, nor his virtues. Even if she had had anything to gain by it, she could never have brought herself to say:
"Constance, what a pretty bolero that is!"
But, pale with envy, she kept looking at the fur as it hung over a chair; and the sight of it caused her almost physical pain, because it was not hers and she did not know how one like it ever could be hers.
Constance was rather tired. First, she had been unpacking trunks with Addie; then Karel and Cateau had come and she had talked copiously in the pleasure and excitement of seeing them. But that visiting-card of Karel's had depressed her; and now she talked listlessly:
"So your girl is going to be married soon, Adolphine?"
"In May."
"I haven't seen either of them since Sunday. A couple of days ago, I found their cards and Dijkerhof's. How quickly a week passes! I didn't find any of you at home either."
"We are so busy shopping all day long, for the trousseau."
"Is Dijkerhof a nice fellow?"
"Yes; and they are a very good family."
As it happened, the Dijkerhofs were not in quite the same set as the Van Lowes; and Mamma van Lowe was not over-enthusiastic about the engagement.
Constance was silent: she was tired, she had a headache and she thought that Adolphine had better keep the conversation going. But Adolphine was too much distracted by the bolero to be in form. She cast about for a subject. And yet there were plenty, for she was dying of curiosity to know all sorts of things: for instance, what Constance thought of Bertha and Cateau. If only that wretched bolero were not there! At last, she began:
"So you're looking for a house?"
Constance answered at random; and, because of her headache, her expression became stiff and haughty and her lips were tightly compressed. Adolphine thought her arrogant and reflected that Constance had always been stuck-up, after her marriage to De Staffelaer and all the smart society in Rome. Adolphine suspected Constance of looking down upon her; and Constance merely had a headache.
"And shall you call on many people?"
No, Constance thought not.
"Won't you go to Court?"
No, Constance hadn't given it a thought.
"Is your boy going to the high-school?"
No, he was to pass his examination for the grammar-school: Van der Welcke wanted him to go to one of the universities, later.
"What photographs are those?"
"Friends of ours, in Brussels."
"Had you many friends there?"
"Not so many, latterly."
Suddenly Constance' eyes met Adolphine's. And Constance did not see Adolphine's hateful hostility: Constance saw only her sister, four years younger than herself, but worn out by a tiresome, difficult life, a life full of money-bothers, full of trouble with spoilt, disagreeable children, receiving no assistance from her husband, Van Saetzema, who was chief clerk at the Ministry of Justice; Constance saw her sister, thin, yellow, eaten up with worry and bitterness, in her almost shabby and yet pretentious clothes. And, notwithstanding her raging headache, she was filled with pity, because Adolphine was her sister. She rose and went to Adolphine:
"Phine," she said, frankly, "don't be angry if I am not very talkative, but I have such a headache. And I really do think it nice of you to look me up. Come often. Let us see a lot of each other. I only came to the Hague because of you all. I wanted you so badly. I have dragged through so many dreary years. I have no one in my life, except my boy. And he is still so young; and I tell him too much as it is. I have been very unhappy, Adolphine, Phine. Be nice to me, be a little fond of your Constance. She did not always behave as she should, she did not always behave as she should. But forgive her, forgive her the past," she whispered, more softly, so that Addie should not hear. "Forgive her that past which is always there, which has never become the past for good and all. Forgive her ... and love her a little!"
She burst into nervous sobs and, impulsively, knelt down by her sister and laid her head on her breast and felt how poor and thin Adolphine was in her arms. A damp smell of rain was steaming from her muddy dress.
"Dear Constance!" said Adolphine, really touched. "Certainly, I care for you. And that past was so long ago: we have all of us forgotten about it."
But Constance sobbed and sobbed.
"Mamma!" said Addie.
She drew him to her also, held her sister and her boy in a close embrace.
"Come, Constance...."
"Mamma, don't cry.... You always have such a headache, Mummy, after crying like that."
She controlled herself, stood up; and Adolphine found a few kind words. Adolphine was certainly touched, but she was cross about that bolero and, besides, she found Addie better-looking, more taking, almost, than any of her own three ugly, lubberly boys. However, she kissed Constance and arranged for Constance to come and take tea with her next evening. When Constance was a little calmer and had laughed a little through her tears, Adolphine took her leave with a warm kiss:
"And I'll just leave Van Saetzema's card, shall I, Constance, here, by Karel's, for Van der Welcke? Then he'll get it when he arrives...."
She put down the card and, suddenly unable to restrain herself, went, as though in passing, to the bolero, looked at it and said, in a voice that bore no resemblance to the envious thoughts that still smouldered in her heart:
"But, Constance!... Do you still wear those short little jackets?"
"Oh, they've been the fashion so long!" answered Constance, still thinking of the visiting-cards.
"Well, I don't know: they'd be too short for me, at my age, I think!"
Seeing that she was younger than Constance, the remark was not only unkind, but dishonest; and Adolphine, now satisfied, went away.
Constance stared at the two visiting-cards and suddenly burst out sobbing again.
Addie took her in his arms. He was already nearly as tall as she was:
"Mamma," he said, gently, with his resolute lad's voice, "don't cry so; and go and lie down a little. You have to go to Grandmamma's to-night; and you'll be too tired if you don't rest first."
And he helped her to take off some of her things and settled her pillows for her.
She lay on the bed, sobbing convulsively, without really remembering why.
The boy sat down by the window, near the console-table, and took up his book, a story of the Boer war. A movement of his arm sent the two cards over. He just glanced down at them, at those two pieces of paste-board formalism, let them lie on the carpet and went on reading....