Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIIShe came to herself with a start and did not know whether she had been unconscious or asleep. At the same moment, she heard the bell and through the curtain she saw Brauws, standing outside the door.“It is he, it is he!” an exultant voice cried inside her.But at the same time she felt too nervous and overwrought to receive him, just ordinarily and naturally. She stopped Truitje in the hall, said that she had a headache and the girl must say not at home; and she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in.“It was he, it was he!” the voice still sang, almost sorrowfully.But she could not have talked ordinarily and naturally.... Suddenly she did what she had not yet done that day: she thought of herself. If they were to separate, Henri and she, then she herself would be free!... Free! A violent longing surged up in her to see Brauws, to speak to him, to say just one word to him, to ask his advice, to abandon herself, as it were, to that advice!... At this moment, for the first time, the thought occurred to her that he must love her too. Would he come so often, if not? Would he speak as he did, reveal himselfso completely, otherwise? Would he otherwise ... she did not know what; but, as she recalled him since he returned from Switzerland, she felt, indeed she was certain that his whole being was permeated with love for her ... a love that was strangely akin to regret, but still love ... Was her love regret? No.... Was her love hope? No, not hope either.... Her love, hers, was only life, had hitherto been only life: the lives which another woman lives from her eighteenth year onwards she had as it were hastened to live now, late as it was. Oh, to live right on from those first young girlish dreams which had danced along radiant paths towards the high clouds above her ... while all the time her incredulous little laugh had tempered their eager joy!... But now, since she had spoken to Van der Welcke, now, suddenly, since she had awakened from her sleep or her swoon after that breath of pure ether, that perfect sincerity, now she felt that her love was not only just existence, just life—the real existence, the real life—but that the most human emotions were suddenly passing through her soul; that she herself regretted what might have been; that she herself hoped—O Heaven!—for what might yet be. It was suddenly as though all her past had fallen from her and as though she saw a number of new paths winding towards new years, towards the wide fields of the future, nothing but the future. It was as thoughthis new inner life of thinking and feeling, this new life of her soul, were also about to begin a new actual life, a life of fresh seasons, which lay spread before her broad and generous as summer and towards which she would fly in joyous haste, because it was already so late ... but not yet too late, not yet too late....She thought of herself, for the first time that day; and a violent emotion throbbed within her, almost taking away her breath. Henri would be back presently: would he tell her that that was best, that they would separate, with still something of affection and gratitude for each other, heedless of people and of everything that made up their world, because they were at last entitled to their own happiness, to the happiness of their own souls and to the happiness of those who loved them really? They would shake from them all that had been falsehood during all those long, long years; and they would now be true, honest with themselves and with every one; and they would be happy.... It was as if these dreams were already lifting her up out of the ring of falsehood, the ring of small people, small souls. Sitting there in her chair, she hid her face in her hands, compressed her closed eyes until, in their blindness, they saw all the colours of the rainbow flashing before them ... so as not to see her room, so as to see nothing but her dreams....“Mamma!...”She started: it was Addie come home. And the start which she gave was a violent one, for she had forgotten him; and a quick compunction shot through those last flashes. She had forgotten him; and yet time after time she had said to herself that she must speak to him as if he were a man.She now called to him to come in, for he always looked in on her when he returned from school in the afternoon. And, when she saw him, she felt as if she were waking from a dream. Still the violent emotion continued to throb in her; and she felt that she could not be silent. She began, at once:“Addie, I have been talking to Papa.”It was impossible for her to go on. Not until he sat down beside her, took her hand in his, did she continue, with difficulty:“Addie, would it make you very unhappy ... if ...”“If what, Mamma?”“If we, Papa and I ... quite quietly, Addie ... without any bitterness ... were to separate?”He started inwardly, but remained outwardly calm. He knew the struggle that was going on in both of them. Had he not constantly heard his father’s name mixed up with Marianne’s? Did he not know and had not he—he alone, within himself, without even letting his mother notice it—had he not guessed the real reason why Mamma had had a differentexpression, a different voice, a different step during the last few months? Did he not feel what prompted her to go for long, long walks—sometimes with him, sometimes alone—over the dunes, towards the sea?... Though he did not know her new life, he had guessed her love....There was a buzzing in his ears as she talked, as she explained to him how it would be better like that, for Papa, and how they both loved him, their child. She mentioned no names, neither Marianne’s nor Brauws’. He remained quiet; and she did not see what was passing within him, not even when he said:“If you think ... if Papa is of opinion ... that it will be better so, Mamma....”She went on speaking, while her heart throbbed violently with the force of her emotion. She spoke of honesty and sincerity ... of happiness for Papa ... perhaps. A curious shyness made her shrink from speaking of herself. He hardly heard her words. But he understood her: he understood what she actually wanted, the future which she wished to bring about and compel. But a passion of melancholy overwhelmed him and his heart was weighed down with grief. He heard her speak of her life—his father’s and hers—as a chain, a yoke, a lie. He felt dimly that she perhaps was right; and the light of those glowing dreams of hers made something shine vaguely before his childish eyes. But he found in it only sadness; and hisheart was still heavy with grief. He was their child; and it seemed as though something in his soul would be rent asunder if they separated, even though their life together was a lie, a chain, a yoke. He tried to weigh those words, to sound their depths, to feel them. But it was only his sadness that he measured, only the depth of his own sorrow. If they were to separate, his parents whom he loved so well, both of them, each of them, whom he had learnt to love so well just perhaps because they did not love each other, then his love, so it suddenly appeared to him, was something which they could both do without, something of no value, to either of them. That was how he felt it, though he could not have put it into words; and he felt it even more profoundly than any words could have expressed.... But she noticed nothing in him. It was not the first time that he had felt the cruelty of life, even towards a child, a boy; and it was not his nature to show weakness. That other time, after his childish soul had suffered so grievously, when he had doubted whether he was his father’s son, he had resolved to triumph over life’s cruelties and not to show anything and to be strong. Now the moment seemed to have come. He remembered his first great trouble, he remembered his resolve: the resolve to be always strong after that first childish weakness; and he was able to repeat, calmly:“If you think ... that it will be better for bothof you, Mamma ... then it is not for me to object....”She thought him almost cold; but he kissed her, said that he, whatever happened, would remain the child and the son of both of them, that he would love them both, equally....But, because of that coldness, the shadow of a doubt suddenly crossed her mind; and it seemed as though her dreams grew dark and cloudy....“Addie,” she asked again, “tell me frankly, tell me honestly that I am right, that it will be a good thing ... for Papa....”“And for you?...”“And for me,” she echoed; and he saw her blush. “Or ... or, Addie, my boy, my darling, is ... is it all too late? Is it too late ... for Papa’s happiness?”“And for yours too, you mean.... Too late? Why should it be too late?”She looked at him, thought him hard, but guessed that he was suffering more than he was willing to admit....“I thought first ... of Papa’s happiness, Addie,” she said, softly. “Because Papa has never been happy with me ... with me who took everything from him and gave him nothing in return, I thought first of all ... of Papa’s happiness and afterwards ... afterwards....”“Afterwards...?”“Yes, Addie, then I thought ... of my own! But perhaps it is not all as I picture it, Addie ... and perhaps it is all too late....”Then he took her in his arms; and she felt his young, sturdy, boyish body against hers, felt it all at once, as a pillar of strength.“Too late? Why should it be, Mamma? Let us first hear what Papa thinks. Too late? No, Mamma. If you see it in this light for the first time now, why ... why should it be too late?”She threw her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder:“I don’t know, dear. I thought ... I thought that it would be a good thing ... for everybody ... for all of us ... Perhaps I am wrong. I can’t tell.... I am tired, dear. Leave me here by myself. Have your dinner with Papa: I don’t want any dinner, I am tired, I sha’n’t come down.... Hark, there’s Papa coming in. Go and tell him that I am tired. Go now, go at once.... I can’t say: perhaps it is not as I thought, Addie, and perhaps ... perhaps it is all ... too late!”She saw his eyes grow softer, full of pity; he pressed her to him.“Addie!” she suddenly implored. “Whatever I may lose, never, never let me lose you! For all the rest is perhaps illusion ... and all too late, too late.... But you ... you are real, you exist!”She held him, clung to his strong shoulders; and he saw her very pale, anxious-eyed:“Mamma....”“No, leave me now, my boy ... leave me alone ... and go to Papa....”He kissed her once more and went away.She stayed behind, looked at herself in the glass. She saw herself, after all this emotion, saw her pale face, her grey hair:“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Oh, to live really, I must not ... I must not think of myself!... For me ... it is all too late! If it has to be so, if we separate, it must be only ... only for him, for Henri ... and for ... and for Marianne!”She sank into her chair, covered her face, kept her eyes tightly closed; but their blindness no longer saw the rainbow-colours flashing before them....Chapter XXVIIIAddie, downstairs, helped his father with the bicycle, took it for him to the little room by the kitchen, promised Papa to see to it for him in the morning.“Am I late for dinner?” asked Van der Welcke.He was tired and hot; his clothes were sticking to him.“Mamma has a head-ache,” said Addie. “Go and change your things first: dinner can wait.”Van der Welcke dragged himself upstairs. He had bicycled so hard that day—both morning and afternoon—with his eyes fixed in front of him, his thoughts fixed in front of him, that his body was tingling with weariness, his eyes blind with that fixed staring, as if they had been full of dust and sand.“Come and help me,” he said to Addie.And, going to the bathroom, he flung off all his clothes and took a shower-bath, while Addie brought him fresh things.He was ready in ten minutes, doing everything in a feverish, tired hurry:“Now we can have dinner. Isn’t Mamma coming down?”“No.”They sat down opposite each other, but Van derWelcke was not hungry, did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was over in a quarter of an hour.“Iamtired!” Van der Welcke confessed.The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the dining-room, which was now growing dark.The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid his head on the boy’s knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep, almost immediately.Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head on his son’s knees.From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon, as though she were humming unconsciously.The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie felt against his hand....That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity, as his mother had told him.And now the thought was whirling in both their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion, they were going to separate after all! For Papa’s happiness, Mamma had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought—as he was thinking now—had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And now jealousy—that heritage from both his parents—sprang up in the boy’s breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him, something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship, they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age, of filial respect; and in Addie’s love for his father there was an element—not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength—of protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger, but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie’s cousins, a girl like ... Marianne.So it was to happen ... Papa and Mamma ... would separate ... and....He felt the sadness of it all ... and his heart was very heavy ... and his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and, if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so, if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier, why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and fortitude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore: everything about his parents, their ill-assorted lives, in which he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie’s knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful,smarting sting.... But suddenly, in the dark room, in the silent house—the servant was no longer singing—Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck, which was stiff with lying down.“Well, you’ve had a good long nap!” said Addie, making his voice sound rough.There was nothing in that voice and in the boyish phrase to suggest the jealousy, the melancholy and the great sorrow that was weighing down his childish soul.Van der Welcke seemed to be waking up to life and reality after his vain attempt to lose himself in that mad devouring of distance. He remembered his conversation with his wife, in which she had been so unusually gentle, so indulgent, showing such self-effacement and self-sacrifice ... so much indeed that he had had to kiss her in spite of himself.“I have been speaking to Mamma,” said he.But he was silent again, could get no further.“So have I,” said Addie, to make it easier for him.But he also did not know what to say; and they remained sitting side by side in the dark dining-room, both staring at the shaft of yellow light that streamed across the garden from the villa at the back. Each now knew, however, that the other knew; and Addie threw his arm over his father’s shoulder, almost protectingly.“It is an idea of Mamma’s, Addie ... that it would be better....”“For both of you.”“For me, Mamma thought.”“And for her too.”“And you, my boy, what would you think ... if it did come to that ... at last?...”“If you both consider ... calmly and dispassionately ... that it would be a good thing....”“And you, you would spend a part of the year with Mamma and a part with me....”“Yes, of course.”“You’re taking it very coolly, Addie.”“Dad, what else is there to do? If it’s better like that ... for the two of you ... I’m bound to think it all right.”“If you can talk like that, it’s because you’re not so fond of us....”“No, I’m just as fond of you: of Mamma, Dad, and of you. But, if it’s got to be, it’s got to be....”“It’s strange, Addie, how everything suddenly, one fine day, seems likely to become different....”“Mamma saw it like that....”“Yes. Mamma has changed lately, don’t you think?”“Mamma has become rather gentler, not so quick-tempered.”“Yes, not so quick-tempered.”“That’s all....”“Yes, that’s all. Tell me, Addie, tell me honestly: do people, as far as you know, still ... talk about us ... as much as they did?”“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t bother about ‘people.’ I just go to school, you see. But I think....”“Do they talk about Mamma?”“No.”“Not at all?”“I never hear anything.”“About me?”“Yes.”“They talk about me?”“Yes, they talk about you, Dad.”“What do they say?”“They talk of you, Dad, and....”“Well?”“Marianne.”“She is going to Baarn ... and then we sha’n’t see each other any more. People are always ready to jabber ... because I’ve gone cycling and motoring ... with Marianne.”It was as though he were confessing and denying in the same breath.“Addie,” he continued, “I cycled a great way to-day.”“Yes, Dad.”“I can always think best when I’m cycling like mad.”“Yes, Dad, I know.”“When I’m scorching along the roads, like a lunatic, I can think. At any other time, I can’t.”“Yes.”“And I thought a great deal to-day, Addie. As a rule, I never think about anything. It tired me to-day even more than the cycling itself. I’m tremendously tired.”“Well, Dad, go to bed.”“No, I want to talk to you. I want to sit with you like this. You’re my friend, aren’t you, your father’s friend? Or aren’t you that any longer?”“Of course I am.”“You’re so cold, Addie, you don’t care a bit.”“Yes, Dad, I do care.”And he pulled Van der Welcke to him and pressed his father’s head against his chest:“Lie like that now and talk away. I do care.”“I thought a great deal, Addie, cycling. This morning, I was angry, furious, desperate. I could have done something violent, broken something, murdered somebody.”“Come, come!...”“Yes, murdered ... I don’t know whom ... I felt, Addie, that I could have become very happy if....”“Yes, Dad, I know....”“You know?”“Yes.”“You understand?”“Yes, I understand.”“When I came home, I was tired and mad with misery. Mamma came upstairs and talked to me. She told me that Van Vreeswijck ... had asked her to go to the Bezuidenhout and speak to Aunt Bertha ... and to Marianne, because Van Vreeswijck ... do you understand?”“Yes, Dad.”“Mamma went. I was furious when I heard that she had been. But she said that Marianne refused....”“Marianne refused him?”“Yes. Then ... then Mamma said ... then she asked ... if it wouldn’t be better that we—she and I—do you understand?”“Yes, Dad.”“She said it in a very nice way. She said it gently, not at all angrily. It was nice of her to think of it, you know, Addie.”“Yes, Dad, sheisnice.”“Well, old chap, then ... then I gave her a kiss ... because she was so nice about it and said it so kindly. And then ... then I went cycling again.”“Yes.”“I can think best when I’m cycling. I rode androde. Meanwhile, I was thinking, would it be a good thing?... My boy, you are more than my son, aren’t you: you’re my friend?”“Yes.”“All the time, I was thinking ... of Marianne. I am fond of her, Addie.”“Yes, Father.”“I tried to imagine it ... I know ... that she is fond of me, Addie.”“Yes.”“I tried to picture it ... And then, Addie ... then I thought myself old. Tell me, I am old, don’t you think?”“You are not old, Father.”“No, perhaps not.... Still, Addie, I don’t know, I really don’t know.... Then, Addie, I thought....”“Of what, Dad, of whom?”“I went on riding, like a madman. That’s how I think best. Then I thought of ... you.”“Of me?”“Yes, of you.... Tell me, my boy, if we did that ... if everything was changed ... wouldn’t you be unhappy?”“If it was for the happiness of both of you, no. Then I should not be unhappy.”“Yes, so you say. But you would have to be unhappy ... inside. If you still love us both. I thought it all out till I was dog-tired. For I neverthink as a rule. Thinking bores me. This time, I had to ... because Mamma had spoken as she did. Yes, you are bound to be unhappy ... if you still care ... for both of us.”“I tell you again, Dad....”“Yes, I know. But I, Addie,Ishould be unhappy ... afterwards, when it had once happened ...Ishould be unhappy ... because of you.”“Because of me?”“Because of you. You would no longer have a home.”“I should have two homes.”“No, no, you would have none. You would go wandering to and fro between your parents. True, you will soon be a man. You will soon be leaving your parents. But I do feel now that you would have no home and that you would have a father and a mother ... but no parents. Do you follow me? No parents. Even though they quarrel, you have parents now. Perhaps, in a few years, you won’t care about them ... and about their home. But just now, Addie, just for the present, you would be losing a great deal.... You see, old chap, your father has thought it all out ... and I frankly confess, it’s made me dog-tired. I’m resting now, while I tell it you like this, leaning up against you.”“Yes, Dad.”“My boy, my own boy!.... Well, you see, whenyour father had got so far ... then he felt....”“What?”“That he cared more for you ... than for Marianne, poor darling. Differently, you know, but more. Much more. Poor darling!”A passion of joy swept through the lad; his chest, on which his father’s head lay, heaved. But he felt that it was wicked to have that joy:“Dad, once more, if it means your happiness....”“No, old chap ... for there would be something severed in me, something broken: I don’t know how to put it. I should miss you all the time that you were not with me. I couldn’t do it, Addie. It’s an impossibility, Addie.... You know, old chap, I oughtn’t to talk like this to a son of fifteen. Fifteen? No, you’re only fourteen. Well, you look sixteen. But that’s nothing to do with it. I oughtn’t to talk like this. I’m a queer father, eh, Addie? I don’t give you a proper upbringing: I just let you go your own way. Lord, old chap, I can’t do it, I can’t give you a proper upbringing! I shouldn’t know how. You’ll bring yourself up, won’t you? You’re sure to be good and clever and honourable and all the rest of it. I don’t know how, you see: I just let you run wild, like a colt in a meadow. Well, you promise me to turn out all right, don’t you? To do nothing mean and so on? You know, if Grandpapa were to hear all this, wereto hear me talking like this, he would think it very odd. And it is odd. It’s not right. But your father, Addie, is like that: he’s hopeless, quite hopeless. So now you know all about it. I couldn’t do it.... Poor Marianne, poor darling! But she’s young still; she’ll have her happiness one day, a different happiness.... Well, Addie, tell Mamma to-morrow. Tell her I would rather, if Mamma agrees, leave everything as it is, old chap, even though it’s not always a paradise, that I’d rather leave everything as it is, old chap, for your sake ... and also for my own: I could never do without you for six months. You may be going away quite soon: Leiden ... and then your service ... but, for the present ... for the present.... Will you tell Mamma to-morrow? Those serious conversations make me feel so tired ... in my head. I would rather cycle for a week on end without stopping than spend one day thinking as I have done to-day.... And now I’m going to bed, old chap, for I’m dead tired....”He caught his son in his arms, held him closely, kissed him and went away abruptly. The boy remained alone in the dark room. The yellow shaft of light from the other villa died away. The house was quite silent; the servants had gone to bed. And the boy stayed on, knowing all the time that his parents upstairs, in their own rooms, were still separated, in spite of so much that might have unitedthem; he sat there, still and silent, staring out into the hot summer night, through which the trees loomed like ghostly giants, sombre and oppressive....Yet his soul was flooded with a great joy: his father loved him best!Chapter XXIXConstance remained alone the whole evening.She had opened both her bedroom-windows wide; and she looked out over the road into the sultry night. She had undressed and put on a white wrapper; and she remained sitting, in the dark room, at the open window.For a moment, she thought that Van der Welcke would come to her, to tell her his decision; but he did not come.... He seemed to be staying with Addie in the dining-room.... Then she heard him go to his own room....In the silence, in the still, sultry darkness, which seemed to enter the room almost heavily, her restlessness, the doubt which she had felt rising in herself, during those few words with Addie, melted away. Sitting at the open window, she let herself be borne along by the silent, insidious magic of the late summer hour, as though something stronger than herself were overpowering her and compelling her to surrender herself, without further thinking or doubting, to a host of almost disquieting raptures, which came crowding in upon her....Above the darkling masses of the Woods hung the sullen menace of heavy rain; and, just once or twice, there was a gleam of lightning yonder, in the directionof the sea, which she divined in the distance flashing with sudden illuminations, with noiseless reflections, and then vanishing in the low-hanging clouds of the night.She lay back in her chair, at first oppressed by her doubt and by the heat, but gradually, gradually—her eyes fixed on the electric gleams far in the distance—all her doubts melted away, the enchantment penetrated yet deeper and the storm-charged sultriness seemed a languorous ecstasy in which her breast heaved gently, her lips opened and her eyes closed, only to open again, wider than before, and stare at the lightning that flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished, with intervals full of mystery....No, she doubted no longer: all would be well, all would be well.... She could not make a mistake in this new life, this later life, this mature life, which she had lived, so to speak, in a few months, giving herself up entirely to sincerity and honesty and to the crowning love, the only really true and lofty love. Her love, that late love, had been her life, right from those girlish dreams of a few months past down to the moment of inward avowal; and what in another woman would have lasted years, in the slow falling of the days, which, like beads on a long string, fell one by one through the fingers of silent fate, the unrelenting teller of the beads, she had lived in a few months: after her dreaming had comeher thinking; after her thinking, her wish to know; after her wish to know, her plunge into books and nature, until dreaming, thinking, knowledge and, above all, love supreme and triumphant had mingled to form a new existence and she had been reborn as it were out of herself.She had dreamed and thought and questioned it all hastily and feverishly, as though afraid of being late, of feeling her senses numbed, her soul withered by the grey years, before she had lived ... before she had lived. Hastily, but in all sincerity; and her late awakening had been deep and intense, a mystery to herself and an impenetrable secret to all, for no one knew that she dreamed and thought and questioned knowledge and nature; no one knew that nowadays she looked on a tree, a cloud, a book, a picture with different eyes than in the past, when she had neither eyes nor understanding for tree or cloud, for book or picture, nor found beauty in any; no one saw that something cosmic and eternal flashed before her in that one swift glance of tardy recognition and knowledge; no one knew that she, the aristocrat, felt that keen pity for her day and generation, had learnt to feel it from him, through him. All of it, all of it, all her later life: no one knew it save herself alone.... And gradually, too, in those intimate conversations, they had come to know something of each other, had learnt—guessing first and then knowing—that they had found each other, late inlife—she him, he her—as though at last, at last, after that vague instinctive seeking and trying to find each other in their childhood days, Heaven had been merciful! How vague it had been, that shadowy intuition, hardly to be uttered and vanishing as soon as uttered: on his side, that distant veil of mist, that cloud, on the horizon of the moors; on hers, that perpetual longing to go farther, to flit from boulder to boulder down the hurrying stream, as it rushed past under the dense canopy of those tropical trees: a pair of children knowing nothing of each other and all unconscious until years later that they were both seeking ... both seeking! Oh, that strange dream-quest, that nameless desire, which, when one breathed it, vanished, was no longer a quest! At a touch, it became intangible; as soon as one grasped it, it slipped away, became something different, something different.... But, unbreathed, untouched, ungrasped, just dreamed and dimly felt in those far-off childhood days, it wasthat: the mystic, wonderful reality, which was the only reality.... To both of them, in those days, it had been too gossamer-frail, too intangible and too incomprehensible to last beyond their childhood, that seed of reality working in the womb of time: vanity and frivolity had claimed her for their own, study and reflection had claimed him; and each had wandered farther and farther from that half-divined other, no longer even seeking the other....The years had heaped themselves up between them, between her at the Hague, in Rome, in Brussels, and him in America, when she was an elegant young society-woman, he the workmen’s friend and brother, their comrade who yearned to know and understand them. While she had danced and flirted in the ball-rooms of Rome, he had laboured in the docks, gone down the black shafts of the coal-mines. And all this which had really happened seemed unreal to her, a dream, a remote nightmare, by the side of that childish romance, those fairy visions of yesterday! And yet it had all happened, it had all happened. They had never been allowed to meet each other, not even when they had been brought near each other—on the Riviera, in Brussels—as by an unconscious power! They had not been allowed to meet until now, late, very late, too late.... Oh, is it ever given too late, that blessed boon, to live at last, to find at last?And they had both made mistakes. She had made her mistakes: her brief passion for Henri, the sudden kindling of the senses of a frivolous, bored and idle woman; then the marriage: mistake upon mistake, nothing but waste, waste, waste of her precious life. And he had made mistakes too: he had dreamed of being the brother of those men, a fellow-worker and comrade, and he had not become their brother. Oh, if they had once been allowed to know and find each other, in the years when theywere both young, what a harmony their life together might have been: no jarring note in themselves or in each other, but perfect harmony in all things, attuned to the note of their day and generation; he by her side to understand and love her and support her when the sadness of it all oppressed her! Oh, to have lived, when still young, with him, in his heart, in his arms; and then to have loved, to have understood, to have done, with him and for his sake, all that can still be done for one’s day and generation by those who themselves are strong and radiant in love and happiness and harmony!...And it had not been so; the precious years, far from each other, had been wasted ... by him: he had told her so; by her: oh, her vain, wasted years!...No, fate had not willed it. And yet, now that at last, at last, the honest, simple, true life had kindled into flame, now that, after first thinking of others—of Henri, of Marianne—she had also thought of herself, also thought of him, could not an outward physical life also be kindled after that inward, spiritual life, far from everything and everybody around them, in another country and another world, a life in which she would be beside him, a life of harmony which might be tinged with the melancholy of that late awakening but would still be perfect harmony and perfect happiness?...She lay back in her chair, her hands hanging limply beside her, as if she lacked the energy now to grasp the tempting illusion, afraid of losing it and afraid of seizing it and then recognizing it as an illusion....And the sultry air seemed to be pressing upon her softly and languorously until she panted and her lips parted and her eyes closed only to open again, wider than before; and in that atmosphere of ecstasy it appeared to her that the distant lightning-streaks yonder, the noiseless flashes over the wide sea which she divined yonder, yonder, far away, were themselves the swift effulgence of her thoughts and illusions and regrets: a gleam and gone, a gleam and gone. When it gleamed, came the smiling hope that things could become and remain as she thought; when the light faded, came doubt ... yet not so deep but that the night tempted and lured her:“Hope again ... think once more ... dream again.... It may be ... it is not impossible.... It is reality, pure, simple reality; it will mean the happiness of those two poor children, Henri and Marianne; it will be the happiness of you two, him and you, the woman whose life blossomed late.... It is possible: hope it again, think, dream it again; for what is impossibility, when truth once stands revealed, however late? See, the truth stands revealed; the lightning flashes; sometimes the wholesky is illumined at once; the low clouds drift along; behind them ... behind them lies the infinity of eternity, of everything that may happen!”The room was quite dark; she herself alone remained a white blur in the window-frame; and the night, the air, the lights were there outside, wide and eternal. And, in the sweet languor of the late summer hour, of the sultry night, of her uncontrollable illusion and hopes, she felt as though she were uplifted by a flood of radiant ecstasy, by a winged joy that carried her with it towards the sea yonder, towards the bright rifts of the lightning-flashes, towards the distance of futurity, eternity and everything that might happen.... And she let herself be borne along; and in that moment a certainty came over her, penetrated deep down in her, like a divinely-implanted conviction, that it would be as she had dreamed and hoped and wished, that so it would happen, at long last, because life’s chiefest grace was at length descending upon her....Yes, it would happen like that: she knew it, she saw it in the future. She saw herself living by his side, in his heart, in his arms; living for herself and him; living for each other in all things; she saw it shine out radiantly with each lightning-flash in the radiant shining of those future years. She saw them, those children of the past, with the dew upon them, smiling to each other as though they who, asboy and girl, had unconsciously sought each other had grown into a young man and a maiden who had found each other ... after the mystery of the cloud-veil and of the distant river under the spreading leaves; and they now went on together: their paths ran up towards the glittering cities of the future, which reared their crystal domes under the revealing skies, while from out their riot of towers sunbeams flashed and struck a thousand colours from the crystal domes....A wind rose, as though waking in the very bed of the slumbering night, and leapt to the sky. A cool breath drifted straight out of the sultry, louring clouds; a few drops pattered upon the leaves. And the wind carried the storm farther, carried the revelation with it; the lightning flashed twice, thrice more ... vanished ... paled away.... Not until it had travelled far, very far, would the wind let loose the clouds, would the night-rain fall ... so Constance thought, vaguely....And she sighed deeply, as though waking out of her languor of ecstasy, now that the night, after that rising wind, was no longer so sultry and oppressive. She stood up, wearily, closed the window, saw a morning pallor already dawning through the trees....And she lay down and fell asleep: yes, that was what would happen, it would be like that; she feltcertain of it: that future would come; the paths ran to the crystal-domed city; she was going to it with him ... with him!...Yes, it would come, it would come, to-morrow, yes, to-morrow....And, while that hope still continued to transfigure her face, pale on the pillow in the dawning day, her eyes, blind from long gazing at the light, closed heavily; and she fell asleep, convinced ... convinced....Chapter XXXConviction had conquered doubt and reigned triumphant. When Constance awoke early that morning, she was full of proud, calm confidence, as though she knew the future positively. She hesitated to go to her husband in his room; and he seemed to avoid her too, for as early as seven o’clock she saw him, from her window, riding off on his bicycle. Since their conversation, she had not seen him, did not know what he thought; and it struck her that he was not dashing away, as he had done so often lately, like a madman, but that he pedalled along quietly, with a certain melancholy resignation in his face, which she just saw flickering past under his bicycling-cap.She listened to hear if Addie was awake, but he seemed to be still asleep; also it was holiday-time. And she began to think of Van Vreeswijck and made up her mind to write to him, just a line, to ask him to come, a single line which however would at once allow him to read, between the letters, that Marianne could not love him.... And, while thinking, with a tender pity for him amid her own calm certainty, she bit her pen, looked out of the window....The August morning was already sunny at that hour: there was a blue sky with white, fleecy clouds,which passed like flocks of snowy sheep through a blue meadow; the wind urged the sheep before it, like an impetuous drover. And, while she searched for those difficult words, her mind recalled the night before and the lightning yonder, above the sea, which she divined in the distance.... It was strange, but now, in that morning light, with that placid sky at which she gazed, thinking of Van Vreeswijck and how to tell him in a single, merciful word—with that summer blue full of fleecy white, at which she was gazing so fixedly after the ecstasy and winged bliss that had uplifted her the night before—it was as if her calm, proud confidence in her knowledge of the future was wavering.... She did not know why, for after all she thought that Henri would consent to their divorcing....They would be divorced....And Marianne would....Suddenly, she began to write. She wrote more than she intended to write: she now wrote the truth straight away, in an impulse of honesty, and at the end of her letter she asked Van Vreeswijck to call on her that evening.She had just finished, when Addie came in. He kissed her and waited until she had signed her letter.“Why aren’t you bicycling with Papa?” she asked.He said that his father had asked him to speak to her....And now, sitting beside her, with her hand in his, he told her, without once mentioning Marianne’s name, what Papa had said. His calm, almost cold, business-like words sobered her completely, while she continued pensively to look at the sky, which seemed now to be wearing a blue smile of ignorance and indifference.... Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.... Not that her thoughts took any definite form, for first the ideal vision whose realization had seemed so certain, then the morning doubts and now the disenchantment of the sober facts had all followed too swiftly upon one another; and she could not take it all in; she did not know what she thought. It only seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.Automatically, she said:“Perhaps it is better so.”She had not expected it!She had never thought that Henri’s answer would be the one which she now heard from the mouth of their son!Did one ever know another person, though one lived with that person for years? Did she know her son, did she know herself?But the boy held her hand affectionately.And he read the stupefaction in her eyes:“Tell me, honestly, Mamma. Are you disappointed?”She was silent, gazed at the placid sky.“Would you rather have started a fresh life ... away from Papa?”She bowed her head, let it rest upon his shoulder:“Addie,” she said.She made an attempt to pick her words, but her honesty was once more too strong for her:“Yes,” she said, simply.“Then you would rather have had it so ... for your own sake?”“I would rather have had it so, yes.”They were silent.“I had even pictured it ... like that,” she said, presently.“Shall I speak to Papa again then, Mamma? If I tell him that you had already been thinking of it....”“You believe...?”“He will agree.”“Do you think so?”“If it means the “happiness of both of you....”“Tell me what Papa said.”“I can’t remember exactly.... Only Papa thought ... that not to see me for six months at a time would be more than he could bear.”“Is that all that Papa said?”“Yes.”But he gave just a smile of melancholy resignation; and his look told that that was not all. She understood. She understood that they had spoken of Marianne.“So Papa....” she repeated.“Would rather stay withus, Mamma.”“With us,” she repeated. “We three together?”“Yes.”“It means going on living ... a lie,” she said, in a blank voice.“Then I will speak to Papa again.”“No, Addie.”“Why not?...”“No, don’t do that. Don’t ask Papa ... to think it over again. It is perhaps too late, after all; and besides ... Papa is right. About you.”“About me?”“He could not go six months without you. And I....”“And you, Mamma....”“I couldn’t either.”“Yes, you could.”“No, I couldn’t either.”She suddenly passed her hands along his face, along his shoulders, his knees, as though she wished to feel him, to feel the reality ... the reality of her life. He ... he was the real thing, the truth; but all the rest between her husband and her wasfalsehood, remained falsehood ... because of people. Could they not even for Addie’s sake purge that falsehood into truth? No, no, not even for him. Would falsehood then always cleave to them?...“We are too small,” she thought and murmured her thought aloud.“What did you say?”“Nothing.... Very well, Addie.... Tell Papa that it shall be as he says, that I am quite content ... that I could not do without you either ... for six months!”She looked at him, looked into his serious blue eyes, as though she had forgotten him and were now remembering him for the first time. Six months ... six months without him! The new life, the new paths, the new cities, on those far-off, new horizons ... and six months ... six months without Addie!...Had she then been dreaming? Had she just been dazzled by that glittering vision? Was it just intoxication, ecstasy? Was it just glamour and enchantment?...He left her. She dressed and went downstairs.She felt as if she were back from a long journey and seeing her house again after an absence of months. Her movements were almost like those of a sleep-walker; the house seemed something remote and impersonal, though she had always loved it,looked after it, made it her beautiful home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely evening of inward conviction.... The morning had dawned, placid, with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that ... and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne very much ... that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne, she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than men.... She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual, everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that, if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him, she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness with the man whom she loved and who—she felt it!—loved her. She saw that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated because of her son!... Her son! He was certain to be leaving them soon in any case ...to seek his own life!... Her son! To provide him for a few years more with the paternal house, that wretched fabric of lies, which he, the boy, alone kept together ... for his sake and for the sake of that joint falsehood, she would have to reject the new life of truth!... It was as if she were standing in a maze; but she was certain that she would not have hesitated in that maze, if the decision had been left to her ... that she would have known how to take the path of simple honesty ... that she would have elected to separate, in spite of Addie ... that she loved her new life—and the stranger—more than her child!She had learnt to know herself in that new atmosphere of pure truth; and now ... now she saw so far into those translucent depths that she was frightened and shuddered as in the presence of something monstrous; for it seemed monstrous to her to place anything above her child, above the dear solace of so many years....Just then Van der Welcke came home; she heard him put away his bicycle, go up the stairs ... and then turn back, as if reflecting that he could no longer avoid his wife. He entered, abruptly. She, trembling, had sat down, because she felt on the verge of falling....“Has Addie told you?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.“And ... you think it is the best thing?...”“Yes ... I do....”“So everything remains....” he said, hesitatingly.“As it was,” she replied, almost inaudibly; and her voice hesitated also.“He told you ... the reason?” he went on.“Yes.”“I could not do without him ... all the time that he would be with you, Constance. And you couldn’t do without the boy either, could you, while he was with me?”“No,” she said, automatically; and, as her voice failed her, she repeated, more firmly, “No, I should not be able to do without him.”At that moment, she did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. Only she had a vague sensation ... as though that fair, unsullied truth were retreating a little farther from her ... like a glittering cloud....“Then we might try to be more patient with each other,” he said. “But still I should like to tell you, Constance, that I appreciate your thought ... your intention....”“Yes,” she said, vaguely.“Your thought for me....”“Yes.”But she now found it impossible to let that retreating truth slip still farther from her; and she said:“I was thinking of myself also, Henri ... butit was not clear to me what I thought.... I don’t quite know.... Henri, it is better like this, for everything to remain ... as it was.”“And we both of us love our boy.”“Yes, both of us....”He saw her turn very pale as she leant back in her chair, her arms hanging limply beside her. He had a sudden impulse to say something kind, to give her a kiss; but at the same time he was conscious that neither his words nor his caress would reach her. And he thought, what was the good of it? They had no love for each other. They would remain strangers, in spite of all that they had felt for each other during these days: she suggesting for his happiness something dead against convention; he thrilling with genuine gratitude....“Well, that is settled then,” was all that he said in conclusion, quietly; and he went out, gently closing the door behind him.She did not move, but sat there, gazing dully into space. Yes, she had counted her son a lesser thing than her new life! That was the simple truth, just as much as the new life itself.... And now ... now, as though her mind were wandering, she saw that new life like a crystal city around her, threatening to crack, to rend asunder, to be shattered in one mighty spasm of despair. Her eyes began to burn from staring into those distant, cruel thoughts. In her breast she felt a physical pain.The house, the room stifled her. She felt impelled to fly from that house, from the narrow circles, which whirled giddily around her, to fly from herself. She was so much perplexed in her own being, no longer knowing what was right, what was honest, what true ... that she yearned for space and air. Her breast was wrung with grief and that gasping for breath. Still, she controlled herself, took up a hat, pinned it on and found the strength to say to the servant:“Truitje, I am going out....”She was outside now, in the road. She had become afraid of the loneliness of her room and of herself, a loneliness which in other ways had become so dear to her. Now she was seeking something more than spaciousness of air and forest; but the road, in which a few people were walking, made her keep herself under control. She turned down a side-path, went through the Woods. Here again there were people taking their morning stroll.... Suddenly, she gave a violent start: she saw Brauws, sitting on a bench. She felt as if she would faint; and, without knowing what she was doing, she turned round and walked back.... By this time, she had lost all her self-command. He had seen her, however, and his hand had already gone up to his hat. Suddenly, she heard his step behind her; he came up with her:“Is this how you run away from your friends?”he said, making an attempt to joke, but in obvious astonishment.She looked at him; and he was struck with her confusion.“Don’t be angry,” she said, frankly, “but I was startled at seeing you.”“I was not welcome,” he said, roughly. “Forgive me, mevrouw. I ought not to have come after you. But I’m a tactless beggar in these matters. I am not one of your society-men.”“Don’t be angry,” she repeated, almost entreatingly. “Society indeed! I certainly showed myself no society-woman ... to ... unexpectedly to....”She did not know what she wanted to say.“To turn your back on me,” he said, completing the sentence.“To turn my back on you,” she repeated.“Well, now that I have said good-morning....”He lifted his hat, moved as though to go back.“Stay!” she entreated. “Walk a little way with me. Now that I happen to have met you....”“I came back yesterday ... I meant to call on you to-day or to-morrow....”“Walk with me,” she said, almost entreatingly. “I want to speak to you....”“What about?”“I suggested to Henri....”She drew a deep breath; there were people passing.They were near the Ponds. She ceased speaking; and they walked on silently....“I suggested to Henri,” she repeated, at last, “that we should....”The word died away on her lips, but he understood. They were both silent, both walked on without speaking. He led the way; and it seemed to her that they were making for a goal, she knew not where, which he would know....At last, she said:“I wanted ... as you are our friend ... to tell you....”He was determined to make her say the word:“You suggested what?”“That we should be divorced....”They walked on for some minutes. Suddenly, round about her, she saw the dunes, the distant sea, the sea which she had divined the night before, over which the pale gleams, the lightning-flashes had revealed themselves. Now, the sky overhead was revealed, a vague opal, with white clouds curling like steam....“I suggested that we should be divorced,” she repeated.He drew a breath, in the salt breath of the sea, even as he had breathed in the Alps, when contemplating those ice-bound horizons. And he remembered ... that vision ... and the yearning ... for the one soul ... the meeting with which wouldhave been a consolation amid the constant disappointment encountered with the many souls, the thousands.... And a swift, keen hope seemed to flash before him ... not only of having found at last ... in silence ... but of venturing to utter it ... once; and so keen, so dazzling was the hope that at first he did not hear her say:“But Henri ... thinks it is better ... not....”“What?” he asked, as though deaf, as though blind.She repeated:“Henri thinks it is better not.... Because of our boy ... of Addie....”The keen hope had flashed for only a second, swiftly, with its dizzying rays....Uttered it would never be.... To have found in silence: alas, that was all illusion ... a dream ... when one is very young....“He is right,” he said, in a low voice.“Is he right?” she asked, sadly. And, more firmly, she repeated, “Yes, he is right....”“I should have been sorry ... for Addie’s sake,” he said.“Yes,” she repeated, as though in a trance. “I should have been sorry for Addie’s sake. But I had thought that I should be able to live at last—my God, at last!—in absolute truth and sincerity....and not in a narrow ring of convention, not in terror of people and what they may think absurd and cannot understand ... and ... and....”“And...?” he asked.“And ... in that thought, in that hope ... I had forgotten my boy. And yet he is the reality!”“And yet he ... is the reality.”“And now I am sacrificing ... the dream ... the illusion ... to him.”“Yes ... the dream ... the illusion,” he said, with a smile that was full of pain.“It hurts me!” she confessed, with a sob. “Yesterday—oh, only yesterday, last night!—I thought that the dream, the illusion ... was truth.... But what for young people can be a dream, an illusion ... which comes true....”“Is at our age....”“Absurd?” she asked, still wavering.“Not absurd perhaps ... but impossible. We go bent under too heavy a burden of the past to permit ourselves youthful dreams and illusions. We no longer have any right ... even to memories....”“I have some ... from my childhood,” she stammered, vaguely.“There are no memories left for us,” he said, gently, with his smile that was full of pain.“No, there are none left for us,” she repeated.And she confessed, “I have dreamed ... and thought ... too late. I ... I have begun to live too late....”“I,” he said, “I thought ... that I had lived; but I have done nothing ... but seek....”“You never found?”“Perhaps ... almost. But, when I had found ... I was not allowed to put out my hand....”“Because ... of the past?” she asked, softly.“And of the present. Because of whatisand has younger, fresher rights than mine ... which are no rights ... but the forbidden illusions of an old man....”“Not old....”“Older every day. He alone is in the prime of life ... who has found ... or thinks that he has found....”“Yes, that is so,” she said; and her voice sounded like a wail. “I have begun to live too late. I could have lived ... even now ... perhaps; but it is all too late. I once told you ... that I was abdicating my youth....”“Once, months ago....”“Since then, I have thought, dreamt, lived too much ... not to feel young ... for a few moments.... But it was all an illusion ... and it is all too late....”They looked at each other. He bowed his head,in gentle acquiescence, with his smile that was full of pain:“Yes, it is so,” he said; and it was almost as if he were joking. “Come, let us be strong. I shall go on seeking ... and you....”“Oh, I have my boy!” she murmured. “He hasalwayscomforted me.”They walked back slowly and took leave of each other at the door, a friends’ leave-taking.“Will you come again soon?” she asked.“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, you no sooner see me than I am gone.... I may go to England in the autumn, to lecture on Peace. The world is full of mighty problems; and we ... we are pigmies ... in the tiny worlds of our own selves....”“Yes ... we are nothing....”He left her; she was conscious of a sort of farewell in the pressure of his hand. She went in, with her head swimming; and her son was there. And she embraced him, as though asking his forgiveness.“Addie,” she said, softly, “Papa was right, Papa was right.... I believe that I now know for certain, dear, that I know for certain that Papa was right.... Oh, Addie, whatever I may lose ... you will not let me lose you?...”

Chapter XXVIIShe came to herself with a start and did not know whether she had been unconscious or asleep. At the same moment, she heard the bell and through the curtain she saw Brauws, standing outside the door.“It is he, it is he!” an exultant voice cried inside her.But at the same time she felt too nervous and overwrought to receive him, just ordinarily and naturally. She stopped Truitje in the hall, said that she had a headache and the girl must say not at home; and she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in.“It was he, it was he!” the voice still sang, almost sorrowfully.But she could not have talked ordinarily and naturally.... Suddenly she did what she had not yet done that day: she thought of herself. If they were to separate, Henri and she, then she herself would be free!... Free! A violent longing surged up in her to see Brauws, to speak to him, to say just one word to him, to ask his advice, to abandon herself, as it were, to that advice!... At this moment, for the first time, the thought occurred to her that he must love her too. Would he come so often, if not? Would he speak as he did, reveal himselfso completely, otherwise? Would he otherwise ... she did not know what; but, as she recalled him since he returned from Switzerland, she felt, indeed she was certain that his whole being was permeated with love for her ... a love that was strangely akin to regret, but still love ... Was her love regret? No.... Was her love hope? No, not hope either.... Her love, hers, was only life, had hitherto been only life: the lives which another woman lives from her eighteenth year onwards she had as it were hastened to live now, late as it was. Oh, to live right on from those first young girlish dreams which had danced along radiant paths towards the high clouds above her ... while all the time her incredulous little laugh had tempered their eager joy!... But now, since she had spoken to Van der Welcke, now, suddenly, since she had awakened from her sleep or her swoon after that breath of pure ether, that perfect sincerity, now she felt that her love was not only just existence, just life—the real existence, the real life—but that the most human emotions were suddenly passing through her soul; that she herself regretted what might have been; that she herself hoped—O Heaven!—for what might yet be. It was suddenly as though all her past had fallen from her and as though she saw a number of new paths winding towards new years, towards the wide fields of the future, nothing but the future. It was as thoughthis new inner life of thinking and feeling, this new life of her soul, were also about to begin a new actual life, a life of fresh seasons, which lay spread before her broad and generous as summer and towards which she would fly in joyous haste, because it was already so late ... but not yet too late, not yet too late....She thought of herself, for the first time that day; and a violent emotion throbbed within her, almost taking away her breath. Henri would be back presently: would he tell her that that was best, that they would separate, with still something of affection and gratitude for each other, heedless of people and of everything that made up their world, because they were at last entitled to their own happiness, to the happiness of their own souls and to the happiness of those who loved them really? They would shake from them all that had been falsehood during all those long, long years; and they would now be true, honest with themselves and with every one; and they would be happy.... It was as if these dreams were already lifting her up out of the ring of falsehood, the ring of small people, small souls. Sitting there in her chair, she hid her face in her hands, compressed her closed eyes until, in their blindness, they saw all the colours of the rainbow flashing before them ... so as not to see her room, so as to see nothing but her dreams....“Mamma!...”She started: it was Addie come home. And the start which she gave was a violent one, for she had forgotten him; and a quick compunction shot through those last flashes. She had forgotten him; and yet time after time she had said to herself that she must speak to him as if he were a man.She now called to him to come in, for he always looked in on her when he returned from school in the afternoon. And, when she saw him, she felt as if she were waking from a dream. Still the violent emotion continued to throb in her; and she felt that she could not be silent. She began, at once:“Addie, I have been talking to Papa.”It was impossible for her to go on. Not until he sat down beside her, took her hand in his, did she continue, with difficulty:“Addie, would it make you very unhappy ... if ...”“If what, Mamma?”“If we, Papa and I ... quite quietly, Addie ... without any bitterness ... were to separate?”He started inwardly, but remained outwardly calm. He knew the struggle that was going on in both of them. Had he not constantly heard his father’s name mixed up with Marianne’s? Did he not know and had not he—he alone, within himself, without even letting his mother notice it—had he not guessed the real reason why Mamma had had a differentexpression, a different voice, a different step during the last few months? Did he not feel what prompted her to go for long, long walks—sometimes with him, sometimes alone—over the dunes, towards the sea?... Though he did not know her new life, he had guessed her love....There was a buzzing in his ears as she talked, as she explained to him how it would be better like that, for Papa, and how they both loved him, their child. She mentioned no names, neither Marianne’s nor Brauws’. He remained quiet; and she did not see what was passing within him, not even when he said:“If you think ... if Papa is of opinion ... that it will be better so, Mamma....”She went on speaking, while her heart throbbed violently with the force of her emotion. She spoke of honesty and sincerity ... of happiness for Papa ... perhaps. A curious shyness made her shrink from speaking of herself. He hardly heard her words. But he understood her: he understood what she actually wanted, the future which she wished to bring about and compel. But a passion of melancholy overwhelmed him and his heart was weighed down with grief. He heard her speak of her life—his father’s and hers—as a chain, a yoke, a lie. He felt dimly that she perhaps was right; and the light of those glowing dreams of hers made something shine vaguely before his childish eyes. But he found in it only sadness; and hisheart was still heavy with grief. He was their child; and it seemed as though something in his soul would be rent asunder if they separated, even though their life together was a lie, a chain, a yoke. He tried to weigh those words, to sound their depths, to feel them. But it was only his sadness that he measured, only the depth of his own sorrow. If they were to separate, his parents whom he loved so well, both of them, each of them, whom he had learnt to love so well just perhaps because they did not love each other, then his love, so it suddenly appeared to him, was something which they could both do without, something of no value, to either of them. That was how he felt it, though he could not have put it into words; and he felt it even more profoundly than any words could have expressed.... But she noticed nothing in him. It was not the first time that he had felt the cruelty of life, even towards a child, a boy; and it was not his nature to show weakness. That other time, after his childish soul had suffered so grievously, when he had doubted whether he was his father’s son, he had resolved to triumph over life’s cruelties and not to show anything and to be strong. Now the moment seemed to have come. He remembered his first great trouble, he remembered his resolve: the resolve to be always strong after that first childish weakness; and he was able to repeat, calmly:“If you think ... that it will be better for bothof you, Mamma ... then it is not for me to object....”She thought him almost cold; but he kissed her, said that he, whatever happened, would remain the child and the son of both of them, that he would love them both, equally....But, because of that coldness, the shadow of a doubt suddenly crossed her mind; and it seemed as though her dreams grew dark and cloudy....“Addie,” she asked again, “tell me frankly, tell me honestly that I am right, that it will be a good thing ... for Papa....”“And for you?...”“And for me,” she echoed; and he saw her blush. “Or ... or, Addie, my boy, my darling, is ... is it all too late? Is it too late ... for Papa’s happiness?”“And for yours too, you mean.... Too late? Why should it be too late?”She looked at him, thought him hard, but guessed that he was suffering more than he was willing to admit....“I thought first ... of Papa’s happiness, Addie,” she said, softly. “Because Papa has never been happy with me ... with me who took everything from him and gave him nothing in return, I thought first of all ... of Papa’s happiness and afterwards ... afterwards....”“Afterwards...?”“Yes, Addie, then I thought ... of my own! But perhaps it is not all as I picture it, Addie ... and perhaps it is all too late....”Then he took her in his arms; and she felt his young, sturdy, boyish body against hers, felt it all at once, as a pillar of strength.“Too late? Why should it be, Mamma? Let us first hear what Papa thinks. Too late? No, Mamma. If you see it in this light for the first time now, why ... why should it be too late?”She threw her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder:“I don’t know, dear. I thought ... I thought that it would be a good thing ... for everybody ... for all of us ... Perhaps I am wrong. I can’t tell.... I am tired, dear. Leave me here by myself. Have your dinner with Papa: I don’t want any dinner, I am tired, I sha’n’t come down.... Hark, there’s Papa coming in. Go and tell him that I am tired. Go now, go at once.... I can’t say: perhaps it is not as I thought, Addie, and perhaps ... perhaps it is all ... too late!”She saw his eyes grow softer, full of pity; he pressed her to him.“Addie!” she suddenly implored. “Whatever I may lose, never, never let me lose you! For all the rest is perhaps illusion ... and all too late, too late.... But you ... you are real, you exist!”She held him, clung to his strong shoulders; and he saw her very pale, anxious-eyed:“Mamma....”“No, leave me now, my boy ... leave me alone ... and go to Papa....”He kissed her once more and went away.She stayed behind, looked at herself in the glass. She saw herself, after all this emotion, saw her pale face, her grey hair:“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Oh, to live really, I must not ... I must not think of myself!... For me ... it is all too late! If it has to be so, if we separate, it must be only ... only for him, for Henri ... and for ... and for Marianne!”She sank into her chair, covered her face, kept her eyes tightly closed; but their blindness no longer saw the rainbow-colours flashing before them....

Chapter XXVII

She came to herself with a start and did not know whether she had been unconscious or asleep. At the same moment, she heard the bell and through the curtain she saw Brauws, standing outside the door.“It is he, it is he!” an exultant voice cried inside her.But at the same time she felt too nervous and overwrought to receive him, just ordinarily and naturally. She stopped Truitje in the hall, said that she had a headache and the girl must say not at home; and she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in.“It was he, it was he!” the voice still sang, almost sorrowfully.But she could not have talked ordinarily and naturally.... Suddenly she did what she had not yet done that day: she thought of herself. If they were to separate, Henri and she, then she herself would be free!... Free! A violent longing surged up in her to see Brauws, to speak to him, to say just one word to him, to ask his advice, to abandon herself, as it were, to that advice!... At this moment, for the first time, the thought occurred to her that he must love her too. Would he come so often, if not? Would he speak as he did, reveal himselfso completely, otherwise? Would he otherwise ... she did not know what; but, as she recalled him since he returned from Switzerland, she felt, indeed she was certain that his whole being was permeated with love for her ... a love that was strangely akin to regret, but still love ... Was her love regret? No.... Was her love hope? No, not hope either.... Her love, hers, was only life, had hitherto been only life: the lives which another woman lives from her eighteenth year onwards she had as it were hastened to live now, late as it was. Oh, to live right on from those first young girlish dreams which had danced along radiant paths towards the high clouds above her ... while all the time her incredulous little laugh had tempered their eager joy!... But now, since she had spoken to Van der Welcke, now, suddenly, since she had awakened from her sleep or her swoon after that breath of pure ether, that perfect sincerity, now she felt that her love was not only just existence, just life—the real existence, the real life—but that the most human emotions were suddenly passing through her soul; that she herself regretted what might have been; that she herself hoped—O Heaven!—for what might yet be. It was suddenly as though all her past had fallen from her and as though she saw a number of new paths winding towards new years, towards the wide fields of the future, nothing but the future. It was as thoughthis new inner life of thinking and feeling, this new life of her soul, were also about to begin a new actual life, a life of fresh seasons, which lay spread before her broad and generous as summer and towards which she would fly in joyous haste, because it was already so late ... but not yet too late, not yet too late....She thought of herself, for the first time that day; and a violent emotion throbbed within her, almost taking away her breath. Henri would be back presently: would he tell her that that was best, that they would separate, with still something of affection and gratitude for each other, heedless of people and of everything that made up their world, because they were at last entitled to their own happiness, to the happiness of their own souls and to the happiness of those who loved them really? They would shake from them all that had been falsehood during all those long, long years; and they would now be true, honest with themselves and with every one; and they would be happy.... It was as if these dreams were already lifting her up out of the ring of falsehood, the ring of small people, small souls. Sitting there in her chair, she hid her face in her hands, compressed her closed eyes until, in their blindness, they saw all the colours of the rainbow flashing before them ... so as not to see her room, so as to see nothing but her dreams....“Mamma!...”She started: it was Addie come home. And the start which she gave was a violent one, for she had forgotten him; and a quick compunction shot through those last flashes. She had forgotten him; and yet time after time she had said to herself that she must speak to him as if he were a man.She now called to him to come in, for he always looked in on her when he returned from school in the afternoon. And, when she saw him, she felt as if she were waking from a dream. Still the violent emotion continued to throb in her; and she felt that she could not be silent. She began, at once:“Addie, I have been talking to Papa.”It was impossible for her to go on. Not until he sat down beside her, took her hand in his, did she continue, with difficulty:“Addie, would it make you very unhappy ... if ...”“If what, Mamma?”“If we, Papa and I ... quite quietly, Addie ... without any bitterness ... were to separate?”He started inwardly, but remained outwardly calm. He knew the struggle that was going on in both of them. Had he not constantly heard his father’s name mixed up with Marianne’s? Did he not know and had not he—he alone, within himself, without even letting his mother notice it—had he not guessed the real reason why Mamma had had a differentexpression, a different voice, a different step during the last few months? Did he not feel what prompted her to go for long, long walks—sometimes with him, sometimes alone—over the dunes, towards the sea?... Though he did not know her new life, he had guessed her love....There was a buzzing in his ears as she talked, as she explained to him how it would be better like that, for Papa, and how they both loved him, their child. She mentioned no names, neither Marianne’s nor Brauws’. He remained quiet; and she did not see what was passing within him, not even when he said:“If you think ... if Papa is of opinion ... that it will be better so, Mamma....”She went on speaking, while her heart throbbed violently with the force of her emotion. She spoke of honesty and sincerity ... of happiness for Papa ... perhaps. A curious shyness made her shrink from speaking of herself. He hardly heard her words. But he understood her: he understood what she actually wanted, the future which she wished to bring about and compel. But a passion of melancholy overwhelmed him and his heart was weighed down with grief. He heard her speak of her life—his father’s and hers—as a chain, a yoke, a lie. He felt dimly that she perhaps was right; and the light of those glowing dreams of hers made something shine vaguely before his childish eyes. But he found in it only sadness; and hisheart was still heavy with grief. He was their child; and it seemed as though something in his soul would be rent asunder if they separated, even though their life together was a lie, a chain, a yoke. He tried to weigh those words, to sound their depths, to feel them. But it was only his sadness that he measured, only the depth of his own sorrow. If they were to separate, his parents whom he loved so well, both of them, each of them, whom he had learnt to love so well just perhaps because they did not love each other, then his love, so it suddenly appeared to him, was something which they could both do without, something of no value, to either of them. That was how he felt it, though he could not have put it into words; and he felt it even more profoundly than any words could have expressed.... But she noticed nothing in him. It was not the first time that he had felt the cruelty of life, even towards a child, a boy; and it was not his nature to show weakness. That other time, after his childish soul had suffered so grievously, when he had doubted whether he was his father’s son, he had resolved to triumph over life’s cruelties and not to show anything and to be strong. Now the moment seemed to have come. He remembered his first great trouble, he remembered his resolve: the resolve to be always strong after that first childish weakness; and he was able to repeat, calmly:“If you think ... that it will be better for bothof you, Mamma ... then it is not for me to object....”She thought him almost cold; but he kissed her, said that he, whatever happened, would remain the child and the son of both of them, that he would love them both, equally....But, because of that coldness, the shadow of a doubt suddenly crossed her mind; and it seemed as though her dreams grew dark and cloudy....“Addie,” she asked again, “tell me frankly, tell me honestly that I am right, that it will be a good thing ... for Papa....”“And for you?...”“And for me,” she echoed; and he saw her blush. “Or ... or, Addie, my boy, my darling, is ... is it all too late? Is it too late ... for Papa’s happiness?”“And for yours too, you mean.... Too late? Why should it be too late?”She looked at him, thought him hard, but guessed that he was suffering more than he was willing to admit....“I thought first ... of Papa’s happiness, Addie,” she said, softly. “Because Papa has never been happy with me ... with me who took everything from him and gave him nothing in return, I thought first of all ... of Papa’s happiness and afterwards ... afterwards....”“Afterwards...?”“Yes, Addie, then I thought ... of my own! But perhaps it is not all as I picture it, Addie ... and perhaps it is all too late....”Then he took her in his arms; and she felt his young, sturdy, boyish body against hers, felt it all at once, as a pillar of strength.“Too late? Why should it be, Mamma? Let us first hear what Papa thinks. Too late? No, Mamma. If you see it in this light for the first time now, why ... why should it be too late?”She threw her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder:“I don’t know, dear. I thought ... I thought that it would be a good thing ... for everybody ... for all of us ... Perhaps I am wrong. I can’t tell.... I am tired, dear. Leave me here by myself. Have your dinner with Papa: I don’t want any dinner, I am tired, I sha’n’t come down.... Hark, there’s Papa coming in. Go and tell him that I am tired. Go now, go at once.... I can’t say: perhaps it is not as I thought, Addie, and perhaps ... perhaps it is all ... too late!”She saw his eyes grow softer, full of pity; he pressed her to him.“Addie!” she suddenly implored. “Whatever I may lose, never, never let me lose you! For all the rest is perhaps illusion ... and all too late, too late.... But you ... you are real, you exist!”She held him, clung to his strong shoulders; and he saw her very pale, anxious-eyed:“Mamma....”“No, leave me now, my boy ... leave me alone ... and go to Papa....”He kissed her once more and went away.She stayed behind, looked at herself in the glass. She saw herself, after all this emotion, saw her pale face, her grey hair:“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Oh, to live really, I must not ... I must not think of myself!... For me ... it is all too late! If it has to be so, if we separate, it must be only ... only for him, for Henri ... and for ... and for Marianne!”She sank into her chair, covered her face, kept her eyes tightly closed; but their blindness no longer saw the rainbow-colours flashing before them....

She came to herself with a start and did not know whether she had been unconscious or asleep. At the same moment, she heard the bell and through the curtain she saw Brauws, standing outside the door.

“It is he, it is he!” an exultant voice cried inside her.

But at the same time she felt too nervous and overwrought to receive him, just ordinarily and naturally. She stopped Truitje in the hall, said that she had a headache and the girl must say not at home; and she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in.

“It was he, it was he!” the voice still sang, almost sorrowfully.

But she could not have talked ordinarily and naturally.... Suddenly she did what she had not yet done that day: she thought of herself. If they were to separate, Henri and she, then she herself would be free!... Free! A violent longing surged up in her to see Brauws, to speak to him, to say just one word to him, to ask his advice, to abandon herself, as it were, to that advice!... At this moment, for the first time, the thought occurred to her that he must love her too. Would he come so often, if not? Would he speak as he did, reveal himselfso completely, otherwise? Would he otherwise ... she did not know what; but, as she recalled him since he returned from Switzerland, she felt, indeed she was certain that his whole being was permeated with love for her ... a love that was strangely akin to regret, but still love ... Was her love regret? No.... Was her love hope? No, not hope either.... Her love, hers, was only life, had hitherto been only life: the lives which another woman lives from her eighteenth year onwards she had as it were hastened to live now, late as it was. Oh, to live right on from those first young girlish dreams which had danced along radiant paths towards the high clouds above her ... while all the time her incredulous little laugh had tempered their eager joy!... But now, since she had spoken to Van der Welcke, now, suddenly, since she had awakened from her sleep or her swoon after that breath of pure ether, that perfect sincerity, now she felt that her love was not only just existence, just life—the real existence, the real life—but that the most human emotions were suddenly passing through her soul; that she herself regretted what might have been; that she herself hoped—O Heaven!—for what might yet be. It was suddenly as though all her past had fallen from her and as though she saw a number of new paths winding towards new years, towards the wide fields of the future, nothing but the future. It was as thoughthis new inner life of thinking and feeling, this new life of her soul, were also about to begin a new actual life, a life of fresh seasons, which lay spread before her broad and generous as summer and towards which she would fly in joyous haste, because it was already so late ... but not yet too late, not yet too late....

She thought of herself, for the first time that day; and a violent emotion throbbed within her, almost taking away her breath. Henri would be back presently: would he tell her that that was best, that they would separate, with still something of affection and gratitude for each other, heedless of people and of everything that made up their world, because they were at last entitled to their own happiness, to the happiness of their own souls and to the happiness of those who loved them really? They would shake from them all that had been falsehood during all those long, long years; and they would now be true, honest with themselves and with every one; and they would be happy.... It was as if these dreams were already lifting her up out of the ring of falsehood, the ring of small people, small souls. Sitting there in her chair, she hid her face in her hands, compressed her closed eyes until, in their blindness, they saw all the colours of the rainbow flashing before them ... so as not to see her room, so as to see nothing but her dreams....

“Mamma!...”

She started: it was Addie come home. And the start which she gave was a violent one, for she had forgotten him; and a quick compunction shot through those last flashes. She had forgotten him; and yet time after time she had said to herself that she must speak to him as if he were a man.

She now called to him to come in, for he always looked in on her when he returned from school in the afternoon. And, when she saw him, she felt as if she were waking from a dream. Still the violent emotion continued to throb in her; and she felt that she could not be silent. She began, at once:

“Addie, I have been talking to Papa.”

It was impossible for her to go on. Not until he sat down beside her, took her hand in his, did she continue, with difficulty:

“Addie, would it make you very unhappy ... if ...”

“If what, Mamma?”

“If we, Papa and I ... quite quietly, Addie ... without any bitterness ... were to separate?”

He started inwardly, but remained outwardly calm. He knew the struggle that was going on in both of them. Had he not constantly heard his father’s name mixed up with Marianne’s? Did he not know and had not he—he alone, within himself, without even letting his mother notice it—had he not guessed the real reason why Mamma had had a differentexpression, a different voice, a different step during the last few months? Did he not feel what prompted her to go for long, long walks—sometimes with him, sometimes alone—over the dunes, towards the sea?... Though he did not know her new life, he had guessed her love....

There was a buzzing in his ears as she talked, as she explained to him how it would be better like that, for Papa, and how they both loved him, their child. She mentioned no names, neither Marianne’s nor Brauws’. He remained quiet; and she did not see what was passing within him, not even when he said:

“If you think ... if Papa is of opinion ... that it will be better so, Mamma....”

She went on speaking, while her heart throbbed violently with the force of her emotion. She spoke of honesty and sincerity ... of happiness for Papa ... perhaps. A curious shyness made her shrink from speaking of herself. He hardly heard her words. But he understood her: he understood what she actually wanted, the future which she wished to bring about and compel. But a passion of melancholy overwhelmed him and his heart was weighed down with grief. He heard her speak of her life—his father’s and hers—as a chain, a yoke, a lie. He felt dimly that she perhaps was right; and the light of those glowing dreams of hers made something shine vaguely before his childish eyes. But he found in it only sadness; and hisheart was still heavy with grief. He was their child; and it seemed as though something in his soul would be rent asunder if they separated, even though their life together was a lie, a chain, a yoke. He tried to weigh those words, to sound their depths, to feel them. But it was only his sadness that he measured, only the depth of his own sorrow. If they were to separate, his parents whom he loved so well, both of them, each of them, whom he had learnt to love so well just perhaps because they did not love each other, then his love, so it suddenly appeared to him, was something which they could both do without, something of no value, to either of them. That was how he felt it, though he could not have put it into words; and he felt it even more profoundly than any words could have expressed.... But she noticed nothing in him. It was not the first time that he had felt the cruelty of life, even towards a child, a boy; and it was not his nature to show weakness. That other time, after his childish soul had suffered so grievously, when he had doubted whether he was his father’s son, he had resolved to triumph over life’s cruelties and not to show anything and to be strong. Now the moment seemed to have come. He remembered his first great trouble, he remembered his resolve: the resolve to be always strong after that first childish weakness; and he was able to repeat, calmly:

“If you think ... that it will be better for bothof you, Mamma ... then it is not for me to object....”

She thought him almost cold; but he kissed her, said that he, whatever happened, would remain the child and the son of both of them, that he would love them both, equally....

But, because of that coldness, the shadow of a doubt suddenly crossed her mind; and it seemed as though her dreams grew dark and cloudy....

“Addie,” she asked again, “tell me frankly, tell me honestly that I am right, that it will be a good thing ... for Papa....”

“And for you?...”

“And for me,” she echoed; and he saw her blush. “Or ... or, Addie, my boy, my darling, is ... is it all too late? Is it too late ... for Papa’s happiness?”

“And for yours too, you mean.... Too late? Why should it be too late?”

She looked at him, thought him hard, but guessed that he was suffering more than he was willing to admit....

“I thought first ... of Papa’s happiness, Addie,” she said, softly. “Because Papa has never been happy with me ... with me who took everything from him and gave him nothing in return, I thought first of all ... of Papa’s happiness and afterwards ... afterwards....”

“Afterwards...?”

“Yes, Addie, then I thought ... of my own! But perhaps it is not all as I picture it, Addie ... and perhaps it is all too late....”

Then he took her in his arms; and she felt his young, sturdy, boyish body against hers, felt it all at once, as a pillar of strength.

“Too late? Why should it be, Mamma? Let us first hear what Papa thinks. Too late? No, Mamma. If you see it in this light for the first time now, why ... why should it be too late?”

She threw her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder:

“I don’t know, dear. I thought ... I thought that it would be a good thing ... for everybody ... for all of us ... Perhaps I am wrong. I can’t tell.... I am tired, dear. Leave me here by myself. Have your dinner with Papa: I don’t want any dinner, I am tired, I sha’n’t come down.... Hark, there’s Papa coming in. Go and tell him that I am tired. Go now, go at once.... I can’t say: perhaps it is not as I thought, Addie, and perhaps ... perhaps it is all ... too late!”

She saw his eyes grow softer, full of pity; he pressed her to him.

“Addie!” she suddenly implored. “Whatever I may lose, never, never let me lose you! For all the rest is perhaps illusion ... and all too late, too late.... But you ... you are real, you exist!”

She held him, clung to his strong shoulders; and he saw her very pale, anxious-eyed:

“Mamma....”

“No, leave me now, my boy ... leave me alone ... and go to Papa....”

He kissed her once more and went away.

She stayed behind, looked at herself in the glass. She saw herself, after all this emotion, saw her pale face, her grey hair:

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Oh, to live really, I must not ... I must not think of myself!... For me ... it is all too late! If it has to be so, if we separate, it must be only ... only for him, for Henri ... and for ... and for Marianne!”

She sank into her chair, covered her face, kept her eyes tightly closed; but their blindness no longer saw the rainbow-colours flashing before them....

Chapter XXVIIIAddie, downstairs, helped his father with the bicycle, took it for him to the little room by the kitchen, promised Papa to see to it for him in the morning.“Am I late for dinner?” asked Van der Welcke.He was tired and hot; his clothes were sticking to him.“Mamma has a head-ache,” said Addie. “Go and change your things first: dinner can wait.”Van der Welcke dragged himself upstairs. He had bicycled so hard that day—both morning and afternoon—with his eyes fixed in front of him, his thoughts fixed in front of him, that his body was tingling with weariness, his eyes blind with that fixed staring, as if they had been full of dust and sand.“Come and help me,” he said to Addie.And, going to the bathroom, he flung off all his clothes and took a shower-bath, while Addie brought him fresh things.He was ready in ten minutes, doing everything in a feverish, tired hurry:“Now we can have dinner. Isn’t Mamma coming down?”“No.”They sat down opposite each other, but Van derWelcke was not hungry, did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was over in a quarter of an hour.“Iamtired!” Van der Welcke confessed.The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the dining-room, which was now growing dark.The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid his head on the boy’s knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep, almost immediately.Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head on his son’s knees.From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon, as though she were humming unconsciously.The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie felt against his hand....That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity, as his mother had told him.And now the thought was whirling in both their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion, they were going to separate after all! For Papa’s happiness, Mamma had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought—as he was thinking now—had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And now jealousy—that heritage from both his parents—sprang up in the boy’s breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him, something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship, they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age, of filial respect; and in Addie’s love for his father there was an element—not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength—of protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger, but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie’s cousins, a girl like ... Marianne.So it was to happen ... Papa and Mamma ... would separate ... and....He felt the sadness of it all ... and his heart was very heavy ... and his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and, if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so, if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier, why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and fortitude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore: everything about his parents, their ill-assorted lives, in which he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie’s knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful,smarting sting.... But suddenly, in the dark room, in the silent house—the servant was no longer singing—Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck, which was stiff with lying down.“Well, you’ve had a good long nap!” said Addie, making his voice sound rough.There was nothing in that voice and in the boyish phrase to suggest the jealousy, the melancholy and the great sorrow that was weighing down his childish soul.Van der Welcke seemed to be waking up to life and reality after his vain attempt to lose himself in that mad devouring of distance. He remembered his conversation with his wife, in which she had been so unusually gentle, so indulgent, showing such self-effacement and self-sacrifice ... so much indeed that he had had to kiss her in spite of himself.“I have been speaking to Mamma,” said he.But he was silent again, could get no further.“So have I,” said Addie, to make it easier for him.But he also did not know what to say; and they remained sitting side by side in the dark dining-room, both staring at the shaft of yellow light that streamed across the garden from the villa at the back. Each now knew, however, that the other knew; and Addie threw his arm over his father’s shoulder, almost protectingly.“It is an idea of Mamma’s, Addie ... that it would be better....”“For both of you.”“For me, Mamma thought.”“And for her too.”“And you, my boy, what would you think ... if it did come to that ... at last?...”“If you both consider ... calmly and dispassionately ... that it would be a good thing....”“And you, you would spend a part of the year with Mamma and a part with me....”“Yes, of course.”“You’re taking it very coolly, Addie.”“Dad, what else is there to do? If it’s better like that ... for the two of you ... I’m bound to think it all right.”“If you can talk like that, it’s because you’re not so fond of us....”“No, I’m just as fond of you: of Mamma, Dad, and of you. But, if it’s got to be, it’s got to be....”“It’s strange, Addie, how everything suddenly, one fine day, seems likely to become different....”“Mamma saw it like that....”“Yes. Mamma has changed lately, don’t you think?”“Mamma has become rather gentler, not so quick-tempered.”“Yes, not so quick-tempered.”“That’s all....”“Yes, that’s all. Tell me, Addie, tell me honestly: do people, as far as you know, still ... talk about us ... as much as they did?”“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t bother about ‘people.’ I just go to school, you see. But I think....”“Do they talk about Mamma?”“No.”“Not at all?”“I never hear anything.”“About me?”“Yes.”“They talk about me?”“Yes, they talk about you, Dad.”“What do they say?”“They talk of you, Dad, and....”“Well?”“Marianne.”“She is going to Baarn ... and then we sha’n’t see each other any more. People are always ready to jabber ... because I’ve gone cycling and motoring ... with Marianne.”It was as though he were confessing and denying in the same breath.“Addie,” he continued, “I cycled a great way to-day.”“Yes, Dad.”“I can always think best when I’m cycling like mad.”“Yes, Dad, I know.”“When I’m scorching along the roads, like a lunatic, I can think. At any other time, I can’t.”“Yes.”“And I thought a great deal to-day, Addie. As a rule, I never think about anything. It tired me to-day even more than the cycling itself. I’m tremendously tired.”“Well, Dad, go to bed.”“No, I want to talk to you. I want to sit with you like this. You’re my friend, aren’t you, your father’s friend? Or aren’t you that any longer?”“Of course I am.”“You’re so cold, Addie, you don’t care a bit.”“Yes, Dad, I do care.”And he pulled Van der Welcke to him and pressed his father’s head against his chest:“Lie like that now and talk away. I do care.”“I thought a great deal, Addie, cycling. This morning, I was angry, furious, desperate. I could have done something violent, broken something, murdered somebody.”“Come, come!...”“Yes, murdered ... I don’t know whom ... I felt, Addie, that I could have become very happy if....”“Yes, Dad, I know....”“You know?”“Yes.”“You understand?”“Yes, I understand.”“When I came home, I was tired and mad with misery. Mamma came upstairs and talked to me. She told me that Van Vreeswijck ... had asked her to go to the Bezuidenhout and speak to Aunt Bertha ... and to Marianne, because Van Vreeswijck ... do you understand?”“Yes, Dad.”“Mamma went. I was furious when I heard that she had been. But she said that Marianne refused....”“Marianne refused him?”“Yes. Then ... then Mamma said ... then she asked ... if it wouldn’t be better that we—she and I—do you understand?”“Yes, Dad.”“She said it in a very nice way. She said it gently, not at all angrily. It was nice of her to think of it, you know, Addie.”“Yes, Dad, sheisnice.”“Well, old chap, then ... then I gave her a kiss ... because she was so nice about it and said it so kindly. And then ... then I went cycling again.”“Yes.”“I can think best when I’m cycling. I rode androde. Meanwhile, I was thinking, would it be a good thing?... My boy, you are more than my son, aren’t you: you’re my friend?”“Yes.”“All the time, I was thinking ... of Marianne. I am fond of her, Addie.”“Yes, Father.”“I tried to imagine it ... I know ... that she is fond of me, Addie.”“Yes.”“I tried to picture it ... And then, Addie ... then I thought myself old. Tell me, I am old, don’t you think?”“You are not old, Father.”“No, perhaps not.... Still, Addie, I don’t know, I really don’t know.... Then, Addie, I thought....”“Of what, Dad, of whom?”“I went on riding, like a madman. That’s how I think best. Then I thought of ... you.”“Of me?”“Yes, of you.... Tell me, my boy, if we did that ... if everything was changed ... wouldn’t you be unhappy?”“If it was for the happiness of both of you, no. Then I should not be unhappy.”“Yes, so you say. But you would have to be unhappy ... inside. If you still love us both. I thought it all out till I was dog-tired. For I neverthink as a rule. Thinking bores me. This time, I had to ... because Mamma had spoken as she did. Yes, you are bound to be unhappy ... if you still care ... for both of us.”“I tell you again, Dad....”“Yes, I know. But I, Addie,Ishould be unhappy ... afterwards, when it had once happened ...Ishould be unhappy ... because of you.”“Because of me?”“Because of you. You would no longer have a home.”“I should have two homes.”“No, no, you would have none. You would go wandering to and fro between your parents. True, you will soon be a man. You will soon be leaving your parents. But I do feel now that you would have no home and that you would have a father and a mother ... but no parents. Do you follow me? No parents. Even though they quarrel, you have parents now. Perhaps, in a few years, you won’t care about them ... and about their home. But just now, Addie, just for the present, you would be losing a great deal.... You see, old chap, your father has thought it all out ... and I frankly confess, it’s made me dog-tired. I’m resting now, while I tell it you like this, leaning up against you.”“Yes, Dad.”“My boy, my own boy!.... Well, you see, whenyour father had got so far ... then he felt....”“What?”“That he cared more for you ... than for Marianne, poor darling. Differently, you know, but more. Much more. Poor darling!”A passion of joy swept through the lad; his chest, on which his father’s head lay, heaved. But he felt that it was wicked to have that joy:“Dad, once more, if it means your happiness....”“No, old chap ... for there would be something severed in me, something broken: I don’t know how to put it. I should miss you all the time that you were not with me. I couldn’t do it, Addie. It’s an impossibility, Addie.... You know, old chap, I oughtn’t to talk like this to a son of fifteen. Fifteen? No, you’re only fourteen. Well, you look sixteen. But that’s nothing to do with it. I oughtn’t to talk like this. I’m a queer father, eh, Addie? I don’t give you a proper upbringing: I just let you go your own way. Lord, old chap, I can’t do it, I can’t give you a proper upbringing! I shouldn’t know how. You’ll bring yourself up, won’t you? You’re sure to be good and clever and honourable and all the rest of it. I don’t know how, you see: I just let you run wild, like a colt in a meadow. Well, you promise me to turn out all right, don’t you? To do nothing mean and so on? You know, if Grandpapa were to hear all this, wereto hear me talking like this, he would think it very odd. And it is odd. It’s not right. But your father, Addie, is like that: he’s hopeless, quite hopeless. So now you know all about it. I couldn’t do it.... Poor Marianne, poor darling! But she’s young still; she’ll have her happiness one day, a different happiness.... Well, Addie, tell Mamma to-morrow. Tell her I would rather, if Mamma agrees, leave everything as it is, old chap, even though it’s not always a paradise, that I’d rather leave everything as it is, old chap, for your sake ... and also for my own: I could never do without you for six months. You may be going away quite soon: Leiden ... and then your service ... but, for the present ... for the present.... Will you tell Mamma to-morrow? Those serious conversations make me feel so tired ... in my head. I would rather cycle for a week on end without stopping than spend one day thinking as I have done to-day.... And now I’m going to bed, old chap, for I’m dead tired....”He caught his son in his arms, held him closely, kissed him and went away abruptly. The boy remained alone in the dark room. The yellow shaft of light from the other villa died away. The house was quite silent; the servants had gone to bed. And the boy stayed on, knowing all the time that his parents upstairs, in their own rooms, were still separated, in spite of so much that might have unitedthem; he sat there, still and silent, staring out into the hot summer night, through which the trees loomed like ghostly giants, sombre and oppressive....Yet his soul was flooded with a great joy: his father loved him best!

Chapter XXVIII

Addie, downstairs, helped his father with the bicycle, took it for him to the little room by the kitchen, promised Papa to see to it for him in the morning.“Am I late for dinner?” asked Van der Welcke.He was tired and hot; his clothes were sticking to him.“Mamma has a head-ache,” said Addie. “Go and change your things first: dinner can wait.”Van der Welcke dragged himself upstairs. He had bicycled so hard that day—both morning and afternoon—with his eyes fixed in front of him, his thoughts fixed in front of him, that his body was tingling with weariness, his eyes blind with that fixed staring, as if they had been full of dust and sand.“Come and help me,” he said to Addie.And, going to the bathroom, he flung off all his clothes and took a shower-bath, while Addie brought him fresh things.He was ready in ten minutes, doing everything in a feverish, tired hurry:“Now we can have dinner. Isn’t Mamma coming down?”“No.”They sat down opposite each other, but Van derWelcke was not hungry, did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was over in a quarter of an hour.“Iamtired!” Van der Welcke confessed.The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the dining-room, which was now growing dark.The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid his head on the boy’s knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep, almost immediately.Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head on his son’s knees.From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon, as though she were humming unconsciously.The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie felt against his hand....That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity, as his mother had told him.And now the thought was whirling in both their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion, they were going to separate after all! For Papa’s happiness, Mamma had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought—as he was thinking now—had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And now jealousy—that heritage from both his parents—sprang up in the boy’s breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him, something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship, they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age, of filial respect; and in Addie’s love for his father there was an element—not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength—of protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger, but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie’s cousins, a girl like ... Marianne.So it was to happen ... Papa and Mamma ... would separate ... and....He felt the sadness of it all ... and his heart was very heavy ... and his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and, if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so, if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier, why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and fortitude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore: everything about his parents, their ill-assorted lives, in which he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie’s knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful,smarting sting.... But suddenly, in the dark room, in the silent house—the servant was no longer singing—Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck, which was stiff with lying down.“Well, you’ve had a good long nap!” said Addie, making his voice sound rough.There was nothing in that voice and in the boyish phrase to suggest the jealousy, the melancholy and the great sorrow that was weighing down his childish soul.Van der Welcke seemed to be waking up to life and reality after his vain attempt to lose himself in that mad devouring of distance. He remembered his conversation with his wife, in which she had been so unusually gentle, so indulgent, showing such self-effacement and self-sacrifice ... so much indeed that he had had to kiss her in spite of himself.“I have been speaking to Mamma,” said he.But he was silent again, could get no further.“So have I,” said Addie, to make it easier for him.But he also did not know what to say; and they remained sitting side by side in the dark dining-room, both staring at the shaft of yellow light that streamed across the garden from the villa at the back. Each now knew, however, that the other knew; and Addie threw his arm over his father’s shoulder, almost protectingly.“It is an idea of Mamma’s, Addie ... that it would be better....”“For both of you.”“For me, Mamma thought.”“And for her too.”“And you, my boy, what would you think ... if it did come to that ... at last?...”“If you both consider ... calmly and dispassionately ... that it would be a good thing....”“And you, you would spend a part of the year with Mamma and a part with me....”“Yes, of course.”“You’re taking it very coolly, Addie.”“Dad, what else is there to do? If it’s better like that ... for the two of you ... I’m bound to think it all right.”“If you can talk like that, it’s because you’re not so fond of us....”“No, I’m just as fond of you: of Mamma, Dad, and of you. But, if it’s got to be, it’s got to be....”“It’s strange, Addie, how everything suddenly, one fine day, seems likely to become different....”“Mamma saw it like that....”“Yes. Mamma has changed lately, don’t you think?”“Mamma has become rather gentler, not so quick-tempered.”“Yes, not so quick-tempered.”“That’s all....”“Yes, that’s all. Tell me, Addie, tell me honestly: do people, as far as you know, still ... talk about us ... as much as they did?”“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t bother about ‘people.’ I just go to school, you see. But I think....”“Do they talk about Mamma?”“No.”“Not at all?”“I never hear anything.”“About me?”“Yes.”“They talk about me?”“Yes, they talk about you, Dad.”“What do they say?”“They talk of you, Dad, and....”“Well?”“Marianne.”“She is going to Baarn ... and then we sha’n’t see each other any more. People are always ready to jabber ... because I’ve gone cycling and motoring ... with Marianne.”It was as though he were confessing and denying in the same breath.“Addie,” he continued, “I cycled a great way to-day.”“Yes, Dad.”“I can always think best when I’m cycling like mad.”“Yes, Dad, I know.”“When I’m scorching along the roads, like a lunatic, I can think. At any other time, I can’t.”“Yes.”“And I thought a great deal to-day, Addie. As a rule, I never think about anything. It tired me to-day even more than the cycling itself. I’m tremendously tired.”“Well, Dad, go to bed.”“No, I want to talk to you. I want to sit with you like this. You’re my friend, aren’t you, your father’s friend? Or aren’t you that any longer?”“Of course I am.”“You’re so cold, Addie, you don’t care a bit.”“Yes, Dad, I do care.”And he pulled Van der Welcke to him and pressed his father’s head against his chest:“Lie like that now and talk away. I do care.”“I thought a great deal, Addie, cycling. This morning, I was angry, furious, desperate. I could have done something violent, broken something, murdered somebody.”“Come, come!...”“Yes, murdered ... I don’t know whom ... I felt, Addie, that I could have become very happy if....”“Yes, Dad, I know....”“You know?”“Yes.”“You understand?”“Yes, I understand.”“When I came home, I was tired and mad with misery. Mamma came upstairs and talked to me. She told me that Van Vreeswijck ... had asked her to go to the Bezuidenhout and speak to Aunt Bertha ... and to Marianne, because Van Vreeswijck ... do you understand?”“Yes, Dad.”“Mamma went. I was furious when I heard that she had been. But she said that Marianne refused....”“Marianne refused him?”“Yes. Then ... then Mamma said ... then she asked ... if it wouldn’t be better that we—she and I—do you understand?”“Yes, Dad.”“She said it in a very nice way. She said it gently, not at all angrily. It was nice of her to think of it, you know, Addie.”“Yes, Dad, sheisnice.”“Well, old chap, then ... then I gave her a kiss ... because she was so nice about it and said it so kindly. And then ... then I went cycling again.”“Yes.”“I can think best when I’m cycling. I rode androde. Meanwhile, I was thinking, would it be a good thing?... My boy, you are more than my son, aren’t you: you’re my friend?”“Yes.”“All the time, I was thinking ... of Marianne. I am fond of her, Addie.”“Yes, Father.”“I tried to imagine it ... I know ... that she is fond of me, Addie.”“Yes.”“I tried to picture it ... And then, Addie ... then I thought myself old. Tell me, I am old, don’t you think?”“You are not old, Father.”“No, perhaps not.... Still, Addie, I don’t know, I really don’t know.... Then, Addie, I thought....”“Of what, Dad, of whom?”“I went on riding, like a madman. That’s how I think best. Then I thought of ... you.”“Of me?”“Yes, of you.... Tell me, my boy, if we did that ... if everything was changed ... wouldn’t you be unhappy?”“If it was for the happiness of both of you, no. Then I should not be unhappy.”“Yes, so you say. But you would have to be unhappy ... inside. If you still love us both. I thought it all out till I was dog-tired. For I neverthink as a rule. Thinking bores me. This time, I had to ... because Mamma had spoken as she did. Yes, you are bound to be unhappy ... if you still care ... for both of us.”“I tell you again, Dad....”“Yes, I know. But I, Addie,Ishould be unhappy ... afterwards, when it had once happened ...Ishould be unhappy ... because of you.”“Because of me?”“Because of you. You would no longer have a home.”“I should have two homes.”“No, no, you would have none. You would go wandering to and fro between your parents. True, you will soon be a man. You will soon be leaving your parents. But I do feel now that you would have no home and that you would have a father and a mother ... but no parents. Do you follow me? No parents. Even though they quarrel, you have parents now. Perhaps, in a few years, you won’t care about them ... and about their home. But just now, Addie, just for the present, you would be losing a great deal.... You see, old chap, your father has thought it all out ... and I frankly confess, it’s made me dog-tired. I’m resting now, while I tell it you like this, leaning up against you.”“Yes, Dad.”“My boy, my own boy!.... Well, you see, whenyour father had got so far ... then he felt....”“What?”“That he cared more for you ... than for Marianne, poor darling. Differently, you know, but more. Much more. Poor darling!”A passion of joy swept through the lad; his chest, on which his father’s head lay, heaved. But he felt that it was wicked to have that joy:“Dad, once more, if it means your happiness....”“No, old chap ... for there would be something severed in me, something broken: I don’t know how to put it. I should miss you all the time that you were not with me. I couldn’t do it, Addie. It’s an impossibility, Addie.... You know, old chap, I oughtn’t to talk like this to a son of fifteen. Fifteen? No, you’re only fourteen. Well, you look sixteen. But that’s nothing to do with it. I oughtn’t to talk like this. I’m a queer father, eh, Addie? I don’t give you a proper upbringing: I just let you go your own way. Lord, old chap, I can’t do it, I can’t give you a proper upbringing! I shouldn’t know how. You’ll bring yourself up, won’t you? You’re sure to be good and clever and honourable and all the rest of it. I don’t know how, you see: I just let you run wild, like a colt in a meadow. Well, you promise me to turn out all right, don’t you? To do nothing mean and so on? You know, if Grandpapa were to hear all this, wereto hear me talking like this, he would think it very odd. And it is odd. It’s not right. But your father, Addie, is like that: he’s hopeless, quite hopeless. So now you know all about it. I couldn’t do it.... Poor Marianne, poor darling! But she’s young still; she’ll have her happiness one day, a different happiness.... Well, Addie, tell Mamma to-morrow. Tell her I would rather, if Mamma agrees, leave everything as it is, old chap, even though it’s not always a paradise, that I’d rather leave everything as it is, old chap, for your sake ... and also for my own: I could never do without you for six months. You may be going away quite soon: Leiden ... and then your service ... but, for the present ... for the present.... Will you tell Mamma to-morrow? Those serious conversations make me feel so tired ... in my head. I would rather cycle for a week on end without stopping than spend one day thinking as I have done to-day.... And now I’m going to bed, old chap, for I’m dead tired....”He caught his son in his arms, held him closely, kissed him and went away abruptly. The boy remained alone in the dark room. The yellow shaft of light from the other villa died away. The house was quite silent; the servants had gone to bed. And the boy stayed on, knowing all the time that his parents upstairs, in their own rooms, were still separated, in spite of so much that might have unitedthem; he sat there, still and silent, staring out into the hot summer night, through which the trees loomed like ghostly giants, sombre and oppressive....Yet his soul was flooded with a great joy: his father loved him best!

Addie, downstairs, helped his father with the bicycle, took it for him to the little room by the kitchen, promised Papa to see to it for him in the morning.

“Am I late for dinner?” asked Van der Welcke.

He was tired and hot; his clothes were sticking to him.

“Mamma has a head-ache,” said Addie. “Go and change your things first: dinner can wait.”

Van der Welcke dragged himself upstairs. He had bicycled so hard that day—both morning and afternoon—with his eyes fixed in front of him, his thoughts fixed in front of him, that his body was tingling with weariness, his eyes blind with that fixed staring, as if they had been full of dust and sand.

“Come and help me,” he said to Addie.

And, going to the bathroom, he flung off all his clothes and took a shower-bath, while Addie brought him fresh things.

He was ready in ten minutes, doing everything in a feverish, tired hurry:

“Now we can have dinner. Isn’t Mamma coming down?”

“No.”

They sat down opposite each other, but Van derWelcke was not hungry, did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was over in a quarter of an hour.

“Iamtired!” Van der Welcke confessed.

The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the dining-room, which was now growing dark.

The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid his head on the boy’s knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep, almost immediately.

Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head on his son’s knees.

From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon, as though she were humming unconsciously.

The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie felt against his hand....

That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity, as his mother had told him.And now the thought was whirling in both their minds that, after years and years of wretchedness and disunion, they were going to separate after all! For Papa’s happiness, Mamma had said; and Addie believed that that was how she meant it.

Apart from this, there had been no names mentioned; but Addie knew that both Mamma and Papa, that afternoon, had thought—as he was thinking now—had thought, behind their spoken words, of Marianne. And now jealousy—that heritage from both his parents—sprang up in the boy’s breast, jealousy no longer vague and formless. He felt it with a keener pang because Papa, at this moment, cared more for Marianne than for him. He felt too, for the first time, that, though he did not mean to, he loved his father better than his mother: his father who was like a child, who was himself a boy, a brother, a friend to him, something more than a father almost. In their brotherly comradeship, they had seemed gradually to lose sight of the difference in age, of filial respect; and in Addie’s love for his father there was an element—not yet fully developed, but slowly gathering strength—of protection almost, a feeling that he was perhaps not yet the stronger, but that he would become so when he was a little older. It was a strange feeling, but it had always come natural to him, that way of looking upon his father as a younger brother to be loved and protected.

It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie’s cousins, a girl like ... Marianne.

So it was to happen ... Papa and Mamma ... would separate ... and....

He felt the sadness of it all ... and his heart was very heavy ... and his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and, if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so, if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier, why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and fortitude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore: everything about his parents, their ill-assorted lives, in which he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie’s knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.

Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful,smarting sting.... But suddenly, in the dark room, in the silent house—the servant was no longer singing—Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck, which was stiff with lying down.

“Well, you’ve had a good long nap!” said Addie, making his voice sound rough.

There was nothing in that voice and in the boyish phrase to suggest the jealousy, the melancholy and the great sorrow that was weighing down his childish soul.

Van der Welcke seemed to be waking up to life and reality after his vain attempt to lose himself in that mad devouring of distance. He remembered his conversation with his wife, in which she had been so unusually gentle, so indulgent, showing such self-effacement and self-sacrifice ... so much indeed that he had had to kiss her in spite of himself.

“I have been speaking to Mamma,” said he.

But he was silent again, could get no further.

“So have I,” said Addie, to make it easier for him.

But he also did not know what to say; and they remained sitting side by side in the dark dining-room, both staring at the shaft of yellow light that streamed across the garden from the villa at the back. Each now knew, however, that the other knew; and Addie threw his arm over his father’s shoulder, almost protectingly.

“It is an idea of Mamma’s, Addie ... that it would be better....”

“For both of you.”

“For me, Mamma thought.”

“And for her too.”

“And you, my boy, what would you think ... if it did come to that ... at last?...”

“If you both consider ... calmly and dispassionately ... that it would be a good thing....”

“And you, you would spend a part of the year with Mamma and a part with me....”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’re taking it very coolly, Addie.”

“Dad, what else is there to do? If it’s better like that ... for the two of you ... I’m bound to think it all right.”

“If you can talk like that, it’s because you’re not so fond of us....”

“No, I’m just as fond of you: of Mamma, Dad, and of you. But, if it’s got to be, it’s got to be....”

“It’s strange, Addie, how everything suddenly, one fine day, seems likely to become different....”

“Mamma saw it like that....”

“Yes. Mamma has changed lately, don’t you think?”

“Mamma has become rather gentler, not so quick-tempered.”

“Yes, not so quick-tempered.”

“That’s all....”

“Yes, that’s all. Tell me, Addie, tell me honestly: do people, as far as you know, still ... talk about us ... as much as they did?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t bother about ‘people.’ I just go to school, you see. But I think....”

“Do they talk about Mamma?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“I never hear anything.”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“They talk about me?”

“Yes, they talk about you, Dad.”

“What do they say?”

“They talk of you, Dad, and....”

“Well?”

“Marianne.”

“She is going to Baarn ... and then we sha’n’t see each other any more. People are always ready to jabber ... because I’ve gone cycling and motoring ... with Marianne.”

It was as though he were confessing and denying in the same breath.

“Addie,” he continued, “I cycled a great way to-day.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“I can always think best when I’m cycling like mad.”

“Yes, Dad, I know.”

“When I’m scorching along the roads, like a lunatic, I can think. At any other time, I can’t.”

“Yes.”

“And I thought a great deal to-day, Addie. As a rule, I never think about anything. It tired me to-day even more than the cycling itself. I’m tremendously tired.”

“Well, Dad, go to bed.”

“No, I want to talk to you. I want to sit with you like this. You’re my friend, aren’t you, your father’s friend? Or aren’t you that any longer?”

“Of course I am.”

“You’re so cold, Addie, you don’t care a bit.”

“Yes, Dad, I do care.”

And he pulled Van der Welcke to him and pressed his father’s head against his chest:

“Lie like that now and talk away. I do care.”

“I thought a great deal, Addie, cycling. This morning, I was angry, furious, desperate. I could have done something violent, broken something, murdered somebody.”

“Come, come!...”

“Yes, murdered ... I don’t know whom ... I felt, Addie, that I could have become very happy if....”

“Yes, Dad, I know....”

“You know?”

“Yes.”

“You understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“When I came home, I was tired and mad with misery. Mamma came upstairs and talked to me. She told me that Van Vreeswijck ... had asked her to go to the Bezuidenhout and speak to Aunt Bertha ... and to Marianne, because Van Vreeswijck ... do you understand?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Mamma went. I was furious when I heard that she had been. But she said that Marianne refused....”

“Marianne refused him?”

“Yes. Then ... then Mamma said ... then she asked ... if it wouldn’t be better that we—she and I—do you understand?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“She said it in a very nice way. She said it gently, not at all angrily. It was nice of her to think of it, you know, Addie.”

“Yes, Dad, sheisnice.”

“Well, old chap, then ... then I gave her a kiss ... because she was so nice about it and said it so kindly. And then ... then I went cycling again.”

“Yes.”

“I can think best when I’m cycling. I rode androde. Meanwhile, I was thinking, would it be a good thing?... My boy, you are more than my son, aren’t you: you’re my friend?”

“Yes.”

“All the time, I was thinking ... of Marianne. I am fond of her, Addie.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I tried to imagine it ... I know ... that she is fond of me, Addie.”

“Yes.”

“I tried to picture it ... And then, Addie ... then I thought myself old. Tell me, I am old, don’t you think?”

“You are not old, Father.”

“No, perhaps not.... Still, Addie, I don’t know, I really don’t know.... Then, Addie, I thought....”

“Of what, Dad, of whom?”

“I went on riding, like a madman. That’s how I think best. Then I thought of ... you.”

“Of me?”

“Yes, of you.... Tell me, my boy, if we did that ... if everything was changed ... wouldn’t you be unhappy?”

“If it was for the happiness of both of you, no. Then I should not be unhappy.”

“Yes, so you say. But you would have to be unhappy ... inside. If you still love us both. I thought it all out till I was dog-tired. For I neverthink as a rule. Thinking bores me. This time, I had to ... because Mamma had spoken as she did. Yes, you are bound to be unhappy ... if you still care ... for both of us.”

“I tell you again, Dad....”

“Yes, I know. But I, Addie,Ishould be unhappy ... afterwards, when it had once happened ...Ishould be unhappy ... because of you.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of you. You would no longer have a home.”

“I should have two homes.”

“No, no, you would have none. You would go wandering to and fro between your parents. True, you will soon be a man. You will soon be leaving your parents. But I do feel now that you would have no home and that you would have a father and a mother ... but no parents. Do you follow me? No parents. Even though they quarrel, you have parents now. Perhaps, in a few years, you won’t care about them ... and about their home. But just now, Addie, just for the present, you would be losing a great deal.... You see, old chap, your father has thought it all out ... and I frankly confess, it’s made me dog-tired. I’m resting now, while I tell it you like this, leaning up against you.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“My boy, my own boy!.... Well, you see, whenyour father had got so far ... then he felt....”

“What?”

“That he cared more for you ... than for Marianne, poor darling. Differently, you know, but more. Much more. Poor darling!”

A passion of joy swept through the lad; his chest, on which his father’s head lay, heaved. But he felt that it was wicked to have that joy:

“Dad, once more, if it means your happiness....”

“No, old chap ... for there would be something severed in me, something broken: I don’t know how to put it. I should miss you all the time that you were not with me. I couldn’t do it, Addie. It’s an impossibility, Addie.... You know, old chap, I oughtn’t to talk like this to a son of fifteen. Fifteen? No, you’re only fourteen. Well, you look sixteen. But that’s nothing to do with it. I oughtn’t to talk like this. I’m a queer father, eh, Addie? I don’t give you a proper upbringing: I just let you go your own way. Lord, old chap, I can’t do it, I can’t give you a proper upbringing! I shouldn’t know how. You’ll bring yourself up, won’t you? You’re sure to be good and clever and honourable and all the rest of it. I don’t know how, you see: I just let you run wild, like a colt in a meadow. Well, you promise me to turn out all right, don’t you? To do nothing mean and so on? You know, if Grandpapa were to hear all this, wereto hear me talking like this, he would think it very odd. And it is odd. It’s not right. But your father, Addie, is like that: he’s hopeless, quite hopeless. So now you know all about it. I couldn’t do it.... Poor Marianne, poor darling! But she’s young still; she’ll have her happiness one day, a different happiness.... Well, Addie, tell Mamma to-morrow. Tell her I would rather, if Mamma agrees, leave everything as it is, old chap, even though it’s not always a paradise, that I’d rather leave everything as it is, old chap, for your sake ... and also for my own: I could never do without you for six months. You may be going away quite soon: Leiden ... and then your service ... but, for the present ... for the present.... Will you tell Mamma to-morrow? Those serious conversations make me feel so tired ... in my head. I would rather cycle for a week on end without stopping than spend one day thinking as I have done to-day.... And now I’m going to bed, old chap, for I’m dead tired....”

He caught his son in his arms, held him closely, kissed him and went away abruptly. The boy remained alone in the dark room. The yellow shaft of light from the other villa died away. The house was quite silent; the servants had gone to bed. And the boy stayed on, knowing all the time that his parents upstairs, in their own rooms, were still separated, in spite of so much that might have unitedthem; he sat there, still and silent, staring out into the hot summer night, through which the trees loomed like ghostly giants, sombre and oppressive....

Yet his soul was flooded with a great joy: his father loved him best!

Chapter XXIXConstance remained alone the whole evening.She had opened both her bedroom-windows wide; and she looked out over the road into the sultry night. She had undressed and put on a white wrapper; and she remained sitting, in the dark room, at the open window.For a moment, she thought that Van der Welcke would come to her, to tell her his decision; but he did not come.... He seemed to be staying with Addie in the dining-room.... Then she heard him go to his own room....In the silence, in the still, sultry darkness, which seemed to enter the room almost heavily, her restlessness, the doubt which she had felt rising in herself, during those few words with Addie, melted away. Sitting at the open window, she let herself be borne along by the silent, insidious magic of the late summer hour, as though something stronger than herself were overpowering her and compelling her to surrender herself, without further thinking or doubting, to a host of almost disquieting raptures, which came crowding in upon her....Above the darkling masses of the Woods hung the sullen menace of heavy rain; and, just once or twice, there was a gleam of lightning yonder, in the directionof the sea, which she divined in the distance flashing with sudden illuminations, with noiseless reflections, and then vanishing in the low-hanging clouds of the night.She lay back in her chair, at first oppressed by her doubt and by the heat, but gradually, gradually—her eyes fixed on the electric gleams far in the distance—all her doubts melted away, the enchantment penetrated yet deeper and the storm-charged sultriness seemed a languorous ecstasy in which her breast heaved gently, her lips opened and her eyes closed, only to open again, wider than before, and stare at the lightning that flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished, with intervals full of mystery....No, she doubted no longer: all would be well, all would be well.... She could not make a mistake in this new life, this later life, this mature life, which she had lived, so to speak, in a few months, giving herself up entirely to sincerity and honesty and to the crowning love, the only really true and lofty love. Her love, that late love, had been her life, right from those girlish dreams of a few months past down to the moment of inward avowal; and what in another woman would have lasted years, in the slow falling of the days, which, like beads on a long string, fell one by one through the fingers of silent fate, the unrelenting teller of the beads, she had lived in a few months: after her dreaming had comeher thinking; after her thinking, her wish to know; after her wish to know, her plunge into books and nature, until dreaming, thinking, knowledge and, above all, love supreme and triumphant had mingled to form a new existence and she had been reborn as it were out of herself.She had dreamed and thought and questioned it all hastily and feverishly, as though afraid of being late, of feeling her senses numbed, her soul withered by the grey years, before she had lived ... before she had lived. Hastily, but in all sincerity; and her late awakening had been deep and intense, a mystery to herself and an impenetrable secret to all, for no one knew that she dreamed and thought and questioned knowledge and nature; no one knew that nowadays she looked on a tree, a cloud, a book, a picture with different eyes than in the past, when she had neither eyes nor understanding for tree or cloud, for book or picture, nor found beauty in any; no one saw that something cosmic and eternal flashed before her in that one swift glance of tardy recognition and knowledge; no one knew that she, the aristocrat, felt that keen pity for her day and generation, had learnt to feel it from him, through him. All of it, all of it, all her later life: no one knew it save herself alone.... And gradually, too, in those intimate conversations, they had come to know something of each other, had learnt—guessing first and then knowing—that they had found each other, late inlife—she him, he her—as though at last, at last, after that vague instinctive seeking and trying to find each other in their childhood days, Heaven had been merciful! How vague it had been, that shadowy intuition, hardly to be uttered and vanishing as soon as uttered: on his side, that distant veil of mist, that cloud, on the horizon of the moors; on hers, that perpetual longing to go farther, to flit from boulder to boulder down the hurrying stream, as it rushed past under the dense canopy of those tropical trees: a pair of children knowing nothing of each other and all unconscious until years later that they were both seeking ... both seeking! Oh, that strange dream-quest, that nameless desire, which, when one breathed it, vanished, was no longer a quest! At a touch, it became intangible; as soon as one grasped it, it slipped away, became something different, something different.... But, unbreathed, untouched, ungrasped, just dreamed and dimly felt in those far-off childhood days, it wasthat: the mystic, wonderful reality, which was the only reality.... To both of them, in those days, it had been too gossamer-frail, too intangible and too incomprehensible to last beyond their childhood, that seed of reality working in the womb of time: vanity and frivolity had claimed her for their own, study and reflection had claimed him; and each had wandered farther and farther from that half-divined other, no longer even seeking the other....The years had heaped themselves up between them, between her at the Hague, in Rome, in Brussels, and him in America, when she was an elegant young society-woman, he the workmen’s friend and brother, their comrade who yearned to know and understand them. While she had danced and flirted in the ball-rooms of Rome, he had laboured in the docks, gone down the black shafts of the coal-mines. And all this which had really happened seemed unreal to her, a dream, a remote nightmare, by the side of that childish romance, those fairy visions of yesterday! And yet it had all happened, it had all happened. They had never been allowed to meet each other, not even when they had been brought near each other—on the Riviera, in Brussels—as by an unconscious power! They had not been allowed to meet until now, late, very late, too late.... Oh, is it ever given too late, that blessed boon, to live at last, to find at last?And they had both made mistakes. She had made her mistakes: her brief passion for Henri, the sudden kindling of the senses of a frivolous, bored and idle woman; then the marriage: mistake upon mistake, nothing but waste, waste, waste of her precious life. And he had made mistakes too: he had dreamed of being the brother of those men, a fellow-worker and comrade, and he had not become their brother. Oh, if they had once been allowed to know and find each other, in the years when theywere both young, what a harmony their life together might have been: no jarring note in themselves or in each other, but perfect harmony in all things, attuned to the note of their day and generation; he by her side to understand and love her and support her when the sadness of it all oppressed her! Oh, to have lived, when still young, with him, in his heart, in his arms; and then to have loved, to have understood, to have done, with him and for his sake, all that can still be done for one’s day and generation by those who themselves are strong and radiant in love and happiness and harmony!...And it had not been so; the precious years, far from each other, had been wasted ... by him: he had told her so; by her: oh, her vain, wasted years!...No, fate had not willed it. And yet, now that at last, at last, the honest, simple, true life had kindled into flame, now that, after first thinking of others—of Henri, of Marianne—she had also thought of herself, also thought of him, could not an outward physical life also be kindled after that inward, spiritual life, far from everything and everybody around them, in another country and another world, a life in which she would be beside him, a life of harmony which might be tinged with the melancholy of that late awakening but would still be perfect harmony and perfect happiness?...She lay back in her chair, her hands hanging limply beside her, as if she lacked the energy now to grasp the tempting illusion, afraid of losing it and afraid of seizing it and then recognizing it as an illusion....And the sultry air seemed to be pressing upon her softly and languorously until she panted and her lips parted and her eyes closed only to open again, wider than before; and in that atmosphere of ecstasy it appeared to her that the distant lightning-streaks yonder, the noiseless flashes over the wide sea which she divined yonder, yonder, far away, were themselves the swift effulgence of her thoughts and illusions and regrets: a gleam and gone, a gleam and gone. When it gleamed, came the smiling hope that things could become and remain as she thought; when the light faded, came doubt ... yet not so deep but that the night tempted and lured her:“Hope again ... think once more ... dream again.... It may be ... it is not impossible.... It is reality, pure, simple reality; it will mean the happiness of those two poor children, Henri and Marianne; it will be the happiness of you two, him and you, the woman whose life blossomed late.... It is possible: hope it again, think, dream it again; for what is impossibility, when truth once stands revealed, however late? See, the truth stands revealed; the lightning flashes; sometimes the wholesky is illumined at once; the low clouds drift along; behind them ... behind them lies the infinity of eternity, of everything that may happen!”The room was quite dark; she herself alone remained a white blur in the window-frame; and the night, the air, the lights were there outside, wide and eternal. And, in the sweet languor of the late summer hour, of the sultry night, of her uncontrollable illusion and hopes, she felt as though she were uplifted by a flood of radiant ecstasy, by a winged joy that carried her with it towards the sea yonder, towards the bright rifts of the lightning-flashes, towards the distance of futurity, eternity and everything that might happen.... And she let herself be borne along; and in that moment a certainty came over her, penetrated deep down in her, like a divinely-implanted conviction, that it would be as she had dreamed and hoped and wished, that so it would happen, at long last, because life’s chiefest grace was at length descending upon her....Yes, it would happen like that: she knew it, she saw it in the future. She saw herself living by his side, in his heart, in his arms; living for herself and him; living for each other in all things; she saw it shine out radiantly with each lightning-flash in the radiant shining of those future years. She saw them, those children of the past, with the dew upon them, smiling to each other as though they who, asboy and girl, had unconsciously sought each other had grown into a young man and a maiden who had found each other ... after the mystery of the cloud-veil and of the distant river under the spreading leaves; and they now went on together: their paths ran up towards the glittering cities of the future, which reared their crystal domes under the revealing skies, while from out their riot of towers sunbeams flashed and struck a thousand colours from the crystal domes....A wind rose, as though waking in the very bed of the slumbering night, and leapt to the sky. A cool breath drifted straight out of the sultry, louring clouds; a few drops pattered upon the leaves. And the wind carried the storm farther, carried the revelation with it; the lightning flashed twice, thrice more ... vanished ... paled away.... Not until it had travelled far, very far, would the wind let loose the clouds, would the night-rain fall ... so Constance thought, vaguely....And she sighed deeply, as though waking out of her languor of ecstasy, now that the night, after that rising wind, was no longer so sultry and oppressive. She stood up, wearily, closed the window, saw a morning pallor already dawning through the trees....And she lay down and fell asleep: yes, that was what would happen, it would be like that; she feltcertain of it: that future would come; the paths ran to the crystal-domed city; she was going to it with him ... with him!...Yes, it would come, it would come, to-morrow, yes, to-morrow....And, while that hope still continued to transfigure her face, pale on the pillow in the dawning day, her eyes, blind from long gazing at the light, closed heavily; and she fell asleep, convinced ... convinced....

Chapter XXIX

Constance remained alone the whole evening.She had opened both her bedroom-windows wide; and she looked out over the road into the sultry night. She had undressed and put on a white wrapper; and she remained sitting, in the dark room, at the open window.For a moment, she thought that Van der Welcke would come to her, to tell her his decision; but he did not come.... He seemed to be staying with Addie in the dining-room.... Then she heard him go to his own room....In the silence, in the still, sultry darkness, which seemed to enter the room almost heavily, her restlessness, the doubt which she had felt rising in herself, during those few words with Addie, melted away. Sitting at the open window, she let herself be borne along by the silent, insidious magic of the late summer hour, as though something stronger than herself were overpowering her and compelling her to surrender herself, without further thinking or doubting, to a host of almost disquieting raptures, which came crowding in upon her....Above the darkling masses of the Woods hung the sullen menace of heavy rain; and, just once or twice, there was a gleam of lightning yonder, in the directionof the sea, which she divined in the distance flashing with sudden illuminations, with noiseless reflections, and then vanishing in the low-hanging clouds of the night.She lay back in her chair, at first oppressed by her doubt and by the heat, but gradually, gradually—her eyes fixed on the electric gleams far in the distance—all her doubts melted away, the enchantment penetrated yet deeper and the storm-charged sultriness seemed a languorous ecstasy in which her breast heaved gently, her lips opened and her eyes closed, only to open again, wider than before, and stare at the lightning that flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished, with intervals full of mystery....No, she doubted no longer: all would be well, all would be well.... She could not make a mistake in this new life, this later life, this mature life, which she had lived, so to speak, in a few months, giving herself up entirely to sincerity and honesty and to the crowning love, the only really true and lofty love. Her love, that late love, had been her life, right from those girlish dreams of a few months past down to the moment of inward avowal; and what in another woman would have lasted years, in the slow falling of the days, which, like beads on a long string, fell one by one through the fingers of silent fate, the unrelenting teller of the beads, she had lived in a few months: after her dreaming had comeher thinking; after her thinking, her wish to know; after her wish to know, her plunge into books and nature, until dreaming, thinking, knowledge and, above all, love supreme and triumphant had mingled to form a new existence and she had been reborn as it were out of herself.She had dreamed and thought and questioned it all hastily and feverishly, as though afraid of being late, of feeling her senses numbed, her soul withered by the grey years, before she had lived ... before she had lived. Hastily, but in all sincerity; and her late awakening had been deep and intense, a mystery to herself and an impenetrable secret to all, for no one knew that she dreamed and thought and questioned knowledge and nature; no one knew that nowadays she looked on a tree, a cloud, a book, a picture with different eyes than in the past, when she had neither eyes nor understanding for tree or cloud, for book or picture, nor found beauty in any; no one saw that something cosmic and eternal flashed before her in that one swift glance of tardy recognition and knowledge; no one knew that she, the aristocrat, felt that keen pity for her day and generation, had learnt to feel it from him, through him. All of it, all of it, all her later life: no one knew it save herself alone.... And gradually, too, in those intimate conversations, they had come to know something of each other, had learnt—guessing first and then knowing—that they had found each other, late inlife—she him, he her—as though at last, at last, after that vague instinctive seeking and trying to find each other in their childhood days, Heaven had been merciful! How vague it had been, that shadowy intuition, hardly to be uttered and vanishing as soon as uttered: on his side, that distant veil of mist, that cloud, on the horizon of the moors; on hers, that perpetual longing to go farther, to flit from boulder to boulder down the hurrying stream, as it rushed past under the dense canopy of those tropical trees: a pair of children knowing nothing of each other and all unconscious until years later that they were both seeking ... both seeking! Oh, that strange dream-quest, that nameless desire, which, when one breathed it, vanished, was no longer a quest! At a touch, it became intangible; as soon as one grasped it, it slipped away, became something different, something different.... But, unbreathed, untouched, ungrasped, just dreamed and dimly felt in those far-off childhood days, it wasthat: the mystic, wonderful reality, which was the only reality.... To both of them, in those days, it had been too gossamer-frail, too intangible and too incomprehensible to last beyond their childhood, that seed of reality working in the womb of time: vanity and frivolity had claimed her for their own, study and reflection had claimed him; and each had wandered farther and farther from that half-divined other, no longer even seeking the other....The years had heaped themselves up between them, between her at the Hague, in Rome, in Brussels, and him in America, when she was an elegant young society-woman, he the workmen’s friend and brother, their comrade who yearned to know and understand them. While she had danced and flirted in the ball-rooms of Rome, he had laboured in the docks, gone down the black shafts of the coal-mines. And all this which had really happened seemed unreal to her, a dream, a remote nightmare, by the side of that childish romance, those fairy visions of yesterday! And yet it had all happened, it had all happened. They had never been allowed to meet each other, not even when they had been brought near each other—on the Riviera, in Brussels—as by an unconscious power! They had not been allowed to meet until now, late, very late, too late.... Oh, is it ever given too late, that blessed boon, to live at last, to find at last?And they had both made mistakes. She had made her mistakes: her brief passion for Henri, the sudden kindling of the senses of a frivolous, bored and idle woman; then the marriage: mistake upon mistake, nothing but waste, waste, waste of her precious life. And he had made mistakes too: he had dreamed of being the brother of those men, a fellow-worker and comrade, and he had not become their brother. Oh, if they had once been allowed to know and find each other, in the years when theywere both young, what a harmony their life together might have been: no jarring note in themselves or in each other, but perfect harmony in all things, attuned to the note of their day and generation; he by her side to understand and love her and support her when the sadness of it all oppressed her! Oh, to have lived, when still young, with him, in his heart, in his arms; and then to have loved, to have understood, to have done, with him and for his sake, all that can still be done for one’s day and generation by those who themselves are strong and radiant in love and happiness and harmony!...And it had not been so; the precious years, far from each other, had been wasted ... by him: he had told her so; by her: oh, her vain, wasted years!...No, fate had not willed it. And yet, now that at last, at last, the honest, simple, true life had kindled into flame, now that, after first thinking of others—of Henri, of Marianne—she had also thought of herself, also thought of him, could not an outward physical life also be kindled after that inward, spiritual life, far from everything and everybody around them, in another country and another world, a life in which she would be beside him, a life of harmony which might be tinged with the melancholy of that late awakening but would still be perfect harmony and perfect happiness?...She lay back in her chair, her hands hanging limply beside her, as if she lacked the energy now to grasp the tempting illusion, afraid of losing it and afraid of seizing it and then recognizing it as an illusion....And the sultry air seemed to be pressing upon her softly and languorously until she panted and her lips parted and her eyes closed only to open again, wider than before; and in that atmosphere of ecstasy it appeared to her that the distant lightning-streaks yonder, the noiseless flashes over the wide sea which she divined yonder, yonder, far away, were themselves the swift effulgence of her thoughts and illusions and regrets: a gleam and gone, a gleam and gone. When it gleamed, came the smiling hope that things could become and remain as she thought; when the light faded, came doubt ... yet not so deep but that the night tempted and lured her:“Hope again ... think once more ... dream again.... It may be ... it is not impossible.... It is reality, pure, simple reality; it will mean the happiness of those two poor children, Henri and Marianne; it will be the happiness of you two, him and you, the woman whose life blossomed late.... It is possible: hope it again, think, dream it again; for what is impossibility, when truth once stands revealed, however late? See, the truth stands revealed; the lightning flashes; sometimes the wholesky is illumined at once; the low clouds drift along; behind them ... behind them lies the infinity of eternity, of everything that may happen!”The room was quite dark; she herself alone remained a white blur in the window-frame; and the night, the air, the lights were there outside, wide and eternal. And, in the sweet languor of the late summer hour, of the sultry night, of her uncontrollable illusion and hopes, she felt as though she were uplifted by a flood of radiant ecstasy, by a winged joy that carried her with it towards the sea yonder, towards the bright rifts of the lightning-flashes, towards the distance of futurity, eternity and everything that might happen.... And she let herself be borne along; and in that moment a certainty came over her, penetrated deep down in her, like a divinely-implanted conviction, that it would be as she had dreamed and hoped and wished, that so it would happen, at long last, because life’s chiefest grace was at length descending upon her....Yes, it would happen like that: she knew it, she saw it in the future. She saw herself living by his side, in his heart, in his arms; living for herself and him; living for each other in all things; she saw it shine out radiantly with each lightning-flash in the radiant shining of those future years. She saw them, those children of the past, with the dew upon them, smiling to each other as though they who, asboy and girl, had unconsciously sought each other had grown into a young man and a maiden who had found each other ... after the mystery of the cloud-veil and of the distant river under the spreading leaves; and they now went on together: their paths ran up towards the glittering cities of the future, which reared their crystal domes under the revealing skies, while from out their riot of towers sunbeams flashed and struck a thousand colours from the crystal domes....A wind rose, as though waking in the very bed of the slumbering night, and leapt to the sky. A cool breath drifted straight out of the sultry, louring clouds; a few drops pattered upon the leaves. And the wind carried the storm farther, carried the revelation with it; the lightning flashed twice, thrice more ... vanished ... paled away.... Not until it had travelled far, very far, would the wind let loose the clouds, would the night-rain fall ... so Constance thought, vaguely....And she sighed deeply, as though waking out of her languor of ecstasy, now that the night, after that rising wind, was no longer so sultry and oppressive. She stood up, wearily, closed the window, saw a morning pallor already dawning through the trees....And she lay down and fell asleep: yes, that was what would happen, it would be like that; she feltcertain of it: that future would come; the paths ran to the crystal-domed city; she was going to it with him ... with him!...Yes, it would come, it would come, to-morrow, yes, to-morrow....And, while that hope still continued to transfigure her face, pale on the pillow in the dawning day, her eyes, blind from long gazing at the light, closed heavily; and she fell asleep, convinced ... convinced....

Constance remained alone the whole evening.

She had opened both her bedroom-windows wide; and she looked out over the road into the sultry night. She had undressed and put on a white wrapper; and she remained sitting, in the dark room, at the open window.

For a moment, she thought that Van der Welcke would come to her, to tell her his decision; but he did not come.... He seemed to be staying with Addie in the dining-room.... Then she heard him go to his own room....

In the silence, in the still, sultry darkness, which seemed to enter the room almost heavily, her restlessness, the doubt which she had felt rising in herself, during those few words with Addie, melted away. Sitting at the open window, she let herself be borne along by the silent, insidious magic of the late summer hour, as though something stronger than herself were overpowering her and compelling her to surrender herself, without further thinking or doubting, to a host of almost disquieting raptures, which came crowding in upon her....

Above the darkling masses of the Woods hung the sullen menace of heavy rain; and, just once or twice, there was a gleam of lightning yonder, in the directionof the sea, which she divined in the distance flashing with sudden illuminations, with noiseless reflections, and then vanishing in the low-hanging clouds of the night.

She lay back in her chair, at first oppressed by her doubt and by the heat, but gradually, gradually—her eyes fixed on the electric gleams far in the distance—all her doubts melted away, the enchantment penetrated yet deeper and the storm-charged sultriness seemed a languorous ecstasy in which her breast heaved gently, her lips opened and her eyes closed, only to open again, wider than before, and stare at the lightning that flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished, with intervals full of mystery....

No, she doubted no longer: all would be well, all would be well.... She could not make a mistake in this new life, this later life, this mature life, which she had lived, so to speak, in a few months, giving herself up entirely to sincerity and honesty and to the crowning love, the only really true and lofty love. Her love, that late love, had been her life, right from those girlish dreams of a few months past down to the moment of inward avowal; and what in another woman would have lasted years, in the slow falling of the days, which, like beads on a long string, fell one by one through the fingers of silent fate, the unrelenting teller of the beads, she had lived in a few months: after her dreaming had comeher thinking; after her thinking, her wish to know; after her wish to know, her plunge into books and nature, until dreaming, thinking, knowledge and, above all, love supreme and triumphant had mingled to form a new existence and she had been reborn as it were out of herself.

She had dreamed and thought and questioned it all hastily and feverishly, as though afraid of being late, of feeling her senses numbed, her soul withered by the grey years, before she had lived ... before she had lived. Hastily, but in all sincerity; and her late awakening had been deep and intense, a mystery to herself and an impenetrable secret to all, for no one knew that she dreamed and thought and questioned knowledge and nature; no one knew that nowadays she looked on a tree, a cloud, a book, a picture with different eyes than in the past, when she had neither eyes nor understanding for tree or cloud, for book or picture, nor found beauty in any; no one saw that something cosmic and eternal flashed before her in that one swift glance of tardy recognition and knowledge; no one knew that she, the aristocrat, felt that keen pity for her day and generation, had learnt to feel it from him, through him. All of it, all of it, all her later life: no one knew it save herself alone.... And gradually, too, in those intimate conversations, they had come to know something of each other, had learnt—guessing first and then knowing—that they had found each other, late inlife—she him, he her—as though at last, at last, after that vague instinctive seeking and trying to find each other in their childhood days, Heaven had been merciful! How vague it had been, that shadowy intuition, hardly to be uttered and vanishing as soon as uttered: on his side, that distant veil of mist, that cloud, on the horizon of the moors; on hers, that perpetual longing to go farther, to flit from boulder to boulder down the hurrying stream, as it rushed past under the dense canopy of those tropical trees: a pair of children knowing nothing of each other and all unconscious until years later that they were both seeking ... both seeking! Oh, that strange dream-quest, that nameless desire, which, when one breathed it, vanished, was no longer a quest! At a touch, it became intangible; as soon as one grasped it, it slipped away, became something different, something different.... But, unbreathed, untouched, ungrasped, just dreamed and dimly felt in those far-off childhood days, it wasthat: the mystic, wonderful reality, which was the only reality.... To both of them, in those days, it had been too gossamer-frail, too intangible and too incomprehensible to last beyond their childhood, that seed of reality working in the womb of time: vanity and frivolity had claimed her for their own, study and reflection had claimed him; and each had wandered farther and farther from that half-divined other, no longer even seeking the other....

The years had heaped themselves up between them, between her at the Hague, in Rome, in Brussels, and him in America, when she was an elegant young society-woman, he the workmen’s friend and brother, their comrade who yearned to know and understand them. While she had danced and flirted in the ball-rooms of Rome, he had laboured in the docks, gone down the black shafts of the coal-mines. And all this which had really happened seemed unreal to her, a dream, a remote nightmare, by the side of that childish romance, those fairy visions of yesterday! And yet it had all happened, it had all happened. They had never been allowed to meet each other, not even when they had been brought near each other—on the Riviera, in Brussels—as by an unconscious power! They had not been allowed to meet until now, late, very late, too late.... Oh, is it ever given too late, that blessed boon, to live at last, to find at last?

And they had both made mistakes. She had made her mistakes: her brief passion for Henri, the sudden kindling of the senses of a frivolous, bored and idle woman; then the marriage: mistake upon mistake, nothing but waste, waste, waste of her precious life. And he had made mistakes too: he had dreamed of being the brother of those men, a fellow-worker and comrade, and he had not become their brother. Oh, if they had once been allowed to know and find each other, in the years when theywere both young, what a harmony their life together might have been: no jarring note in themselves or in each other, but perfect harmony in all things, attuned to the note of their day and generation; he by her side to understand and love her and support her when the sadness of it all oppressed her! Oh, to have lived, when still young, with him, in his heart, in his arms; and then to have loved, to have understood, to have done, with him and for his sake, all that can still be done for one’s day and generation by those who themselves are strong and radiant in love and happiness and harmony!...

And it had not been so; the precious years, far from each other, had been wasted ... by him: he had told her so; by her: oh, her vain, wasted years!...

No, fate had not willed it. And yet, now that at last, at last, the honest, simple, true life had kindled into flame, now that, after first thinking of others—of Henri, of Marianne—she had also thought of herself, also thought of him, could not an outward physical life also be kindled after that inward, spiritual life, far from everything and everybody around them, in another country and another world, a life in which she would be beside him, a life of harmony which might be tinged with the melancholy of that late awakening but would still be perfect harmony and perfect happiness?...

She lay back in her chair, her hands hanging limply beside her, as if she lacked the energy now to grasp the tempting illusion, afraid of losing it and afraid of seizing it and then recognizing it as an illusion....

And the sultry air seemed to be pressing upon her softly and languorously until she panted and her lips parted and her eyes closed only to open again, wider than before; and in that atmosphere of ecstasy it appeared to her that the distant lightning-streaks yonder, the noiseless flashes over the wide sea which she divined yonder, yonder, far away, were themselves the swift effulgence of her thoughts and illusions and regrets: a gleam and gone, a gleam and gone. When it gleamed, came the smiling hope that things could become and remain as she thought; when the light faded, came doubt ... yet not so deep but that the night tempted and lured her:

“Hope again ... think once more ... dream again.... It may be ... it is not impossible.... It is reality, pure, simple reality; it will mean the happiness of those two poor children, Henri and Marianne; it will be the happiness of you two, him and you, the woman whose life blossomed late.... It is possible: hope it again, think, dream it again; for what is impossibility, when truth once stands revealed, however late? See, the truth stands revealed; the lightning flashes; sometimes the wholesky is illumined at once; the low clouds drift along; behind them ... behind them lies the infinity of eternity, of everything that may happen!”

The room was quite dark; she herself alone remained a white blur in the window-frame; and the night, the air, the lights were there outside, wide and eternal. And, in the sweet languor of the late summer hour, of the sultry night, of her uncontrollable illusion and hopes, she felt as though she were uplifted by a flood of radiant ecstasy, by a winged joy that carried her with it towards the sea yonder, towards the bright rifts of the lightning-flashes, towards the distance of futurity, eternity and everything that might happen.... And she let herself be borne along; and in that moment a certainty came over her, penetrated deep down in her, like a divinely-implanted conviction, that it would be as she had dreamed and hoped and wished, that so it would happen, at long last, because life’s chiefest grace was at length descending upon her....

Yes, it would happen like that: she knew it, she saw it in the future. She saw herself living by his side, in his heart, in his arms; living for herself and him; living for each other in all things; she saw it shine out radiantly with each lightning-flash in the radiant shining of those future years. She saw them, those children of the past, with the dew upon them, smiling to each other as though they who, asboy and girl, had unconsciously sought each other had grown into a young man and a maiden who had found each other ... after the mystery of the cloud-veil and of the distant river under the spreading leaves; and they now went on together: their paths ran up towards the glittering cities of the future, which reared their crystal domes under the revealing skies, while from out their riot of towers sunbeams flashed and struck a thousand colours from the crystal domes....

A wind rose, as though waking in the very bed of the slumbering night, and leapt to the sky. A cool breath drifted straight out of the sultry, louring clouds; a few drops pattered upon the leaves. And the wind carried the storm farther, carried the revelation with it; the lightning flashed twice, thrice more ... vanished ... paled away.... Not until it had travelled far, very far, would the wind let loose the clouds, would the night-rain fall ... so Constance thought, vaguely....

And she sighed deeply, as though waking out of her languor of ecstasy, now that the night, after that rising wind, was no longer so sultry and oppressive. She stood up, wearily, closed the window, saw a morning pallor already dawning through the trees....

And she lay down and fell asleep: yes, that was what would happen, it would be like that; she feltcertain of it: that future would come; the paths ran to the crystal-domed city; she was going to it with him ... with him!...

Yes, it would come, it would come, to-morrow, yes, to-morrow....

And, while that hope still continued to transfigure her face, pale on the pillow in the dawning day, her eyes, blind from long gazing at the light, closed heavily; and she fell asleep, convinced ... convinced....

Chapter XXXConviction had conquered doubt and reigned triumphant. When Constance awoke early that morning, she was full of proud, calm confidence, as though she knew the future positively. She hesitated to go to her husband in his room; and he seemed to avoid her too, for as early as seven o’clock she saw him, from her window, riding off on his bicycle. Since their conversation, she had not seen him, did not know what he thought; and it struck her that he was not dashing away, as he had done so often lately, like a madman, but that he pedalled along quietly, with a certain melancholy resignation in his face, which she just saw flickering past under his bicycling-cap.She listened to hear if Addie was awake, but he seemed to be still asleep; also it was holiday-time. And she began to think of Van Vreeswijck and made up her mind to write to him, just a line, to ask him to come, a single line which however would at once allow him to read, between the letters, that Marianne could not love him.... And, while thinking, with a tender pity for him amid her own calm certainty, she bit her pen, looked out of the window....The August morning was already sunny at that hour: there was a blue sky with white, fleecy clouds,which passed like flocks of snowy sheep through a blue meadow; the wind urged the sheep before it, like an impetuous drover. And, while she searched for those difficult words, her mind recalled the night before and the lightning yonder, above the sea, which she divined in the distance.... It was strange, but now, in that morning light, with that placid sky at which she gazed, thinking of Van Vreeswijck and how to tell him in a single, merciful word—with that summer blue full of fleecy white, at which she was gazing so fixedly after the ecstasy and winged bliss that had uplifted her the night before—it was as if her calm, proud confidence in her knowledge of the future was wavering.... She did not know why, for after all she thought that Henri would consent to their divorcing....They would be divorced....And Marianne would....Suddenly, she began to write. She wrote more than she intended to write: she now wrote the truth straight away, in an impulse of honesty, and at the end of her letter she asked Van Vreeswijck to call on her that evening.She had just finished, when Addie came in. He kissed her and waited until she had signed her letter.“Why aren’t you bicycling with Papa?” she asked.He said that his father had asked him to speak to her....And now, sitting beside her, with her hand in his, he told her, without once mentioning Marianne’s name, what Papa had said. His calm, almost cold, business-like words sobered her completely, while she continued pensively to look at the sky, which seemed now to be wearing a blue smile of ignorance and indifference.... Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.... Not that her thoughts took any definite form, for first the ideal vision whose realization had seemed so certain, then the morning doubts and now the disenchantment of the sober facts had all followed too swiftly upon one another; and she could not take it all in; she did not know what she thought. It only seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.Automatically, she said:“Perhaps it is better so.”She had not expected it!She had never thought that Henri’s answer would be the one which she now heard from the mouth of their son!Did one ever know another person, though one lived with that person for years? Did she know her son, did she know herself?But the boy held her hand affectionately.And he read the stupefaction in her eyes:“Tell me, honestly, Mamma. Are you disappointed?”She was silent, gazed at the placid sky.“Would you rather have started a fresh life ... away from Papa?”She bowed her head, let it rest upon his shoulder:“Addie,” she said.She made an attempt to pick her words, but her honesty was once more too strong for her:“Yes,” she said, simply.“Then you would rather have had it so ... for your own sake?”“I would rather have had it so, yes.”They were silent.“I had even pictured it ... like that,” she said, presently.“Shall I speak to Papa again then, Mamma? If I tell him that you had already been thinking of it....”“You believe...?”“He will agree.”“Do you think so?”“If it means the “happiness of both of you....”“Tell me what Papa said.”“I can’t remember exactly.... Only Papa thought ... that not to see me for six months at a time would be more than he could bear.”“Is that all that Papa said?”“Yes.”But he gave just a smile of melancholy resignation; and his look told that that was not all. She understood. She understood that they had spoken of Marianne.“So Papa....” she repeated.“Would rather stay withus, Mamma.”“With us,” she repeated. “We three together?”“Yes.”“It means going on living ... a lie,” she said, in a blank voice.“Then I will speak to Papa again.”“No, Addie.”“Why not?...”“No, don’t do that. Don’t ask Papa ... to think it over again. It is perhaps too late, after all; and besides ... Papa is right. About you.”“About me?”“He could not go six months without you. And I....”“And you, Mamma....”“I couldn’t either.”“Yes, you could.”“No, I couldn’t either.”She suddenly passed her hands along his face, along his shoulders, his knees, as though she wished to feel him, to feel the reality ... the reality of her life. He ... he was the real thing, the truth; but all the rest between her husband and her wasfalsehood, remained falsehood ... because of people. Could they not even for Addie’s sake purge that falsehood into truth? No, no, not even for him. Would falsehood then always cleave to them?...“We are too small,” she thought and murmured her thought aloud.“What did you say?”“Nothing.... Very well, Addie.... Tell Papa that it shall be as he says, that I am quite content ... that I could not do without you either ... for six months!”She looked at him, looked into his serious blue eyes, as though she had forgotten him and were now remembering him for the first time. Six months ... six months without him! The new life, the new paths, the new cities, on those far-off, new horizons ... and six months ... six months without Addie!...Had she then been dreaming? Had she just been dazzled by that glittering vision? Was it just intoxication, ecstasy? Was it just glamour and enchantment?...He left her. She dressed and went downstairs.She felt as if she were back from a long journey and seeing her house again after an absence of months. Her movements were almost like those of a sleep-walker; the house seemed something remote and impersonal, though she had always loved it,looked after it, made it her beautiful home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely evening of inward conviction.... The morning had dawned, placid, with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that ... and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne very much ... that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne, she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than men.... She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual, everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that, if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him, she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness with the man whom she loved and who—she felt it!—loved her. She saw that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated because of her son!... Her son! He was certain to be leaving them soon in any case ...to seek his own life!... Her son! To provide him for a few years more with the paternal house, that wretched fabric of lies, which he, the boy, alone kept together ... for his sake and for the sake of that joint falsehood, she would have to reject the new life of truth!... It was as if she were standing in a maze; but she was certain that she would not have hesitated in that maze, if the decision had been left to her ... that she would have known how to take the path of simple honesty ... that she would have elected to separate, in spite of Addie ... that she loved her new life—and the stranger—more than her child!She had learnt to know herself in that new atmosphere of pure truth; and now ... now she saw so far into those translucent depths that she was frightened and shuddered as in the presence of something monstrous; for it seemed monstrous to her to place anything above her child, above the dear solace of so many years....Just then Van der Welcke came home; she heard him put away his bicycle, go up the stairs ... and then turn back, as if reflecting that he could no longer avoid his wife. He entered, abruptly. She, trembling, had sat down, because she felt on the verge of falling....“Has Addie told you?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.“And ... you think it is the best thing?...”“Yes ... I do....”“So everything remains....” he said, hesitatingly.“As it was,” she replied, almost inaudibly; and her voice hesitated also.“He told you ... the reason?” he went on.“Yes.”“I could not do without him ... all the time that he would be with you, Constance. And you couldn’t do without the boy either, could you, while he was with me?”“No,” she said, automatically; and, as her voice failed her, she repeated, more firmly, “No, I should not be able to do without him.”At that moment, she did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. Only she had a vague sensation ... as though that fair, unsullied truth were retreating a little farther from her ... like a glittering cloud....“Then we might try to be more patient with each other,” he said. “But still I should like to tell you, Constance, that I appreciate your thought ... your intention....”“Yes,” she said, vaguely.“Your thought for me....”“Yes.”But she now found it impossible to let that retreating truth slip still farther from her; and she said:“I was thinking of myself also, Henri ... butit was not clear to me what I thought.... I don’t quite know.... Henri, it is better like this, for everything to remain ... as it was.”“And we both of us love our boy.”“Yes, both of us....”He saw her turn very pale as she leant back in her chair, her arms hanging limply beside her. He had a sudden impulse to say something kind, to give her a kiss; but at the same time he was conscious that neither his words nor his caress would reach her. And he thought, what was the good of it? They had no love for each other. They would remain strangers, in spite of all that they had felt for each other during these days: she suggesting for his happiness something dead against convention; he thrilling with genuine gratitude....“Well, that is settled then,” was all that he said in conclusion, quietly; and he went out, gently closing the door behind him.She did not move, but sat there, gazing dully into space. Yes, she had counted her son a lesser thing than her new life! That was the simple truth, just as much as the new life itself.... And now ... now, as though her mind were wandering, she saw that new life like a crystal city around her, threatening to crack, to rend asunder, to be shattered in one mighty spasm of despair. Her eyes began to burn from staring into those distant, cruel thoughts. In her breast she felt a physical pain.The house, the room stifled her. She felt impelled to fly from that house, from the narrow circles, which whirled giddily around her, to fly from herself. She was so much perplexed in her own being, no longer knowing what was right, what was honest, what true ... that she yearned for space and air. Her breast was wrung with grief and that gasping for breath. Still, she controlled herself, took up a hat, pinned it on and found the strength to say to the servant:“Truitje, I am going out....”She was outside now, in the road. She had become afraid of the loneliness of her room and of herself, a loneliness which in other ways had become so dear to her. Now she was seeking something more than spaciousness of air and forest; but the road, in which a few people were walking, made her keep herself under control. She turned down a side-path, went through the Woods. Here again there were people taking their morning stroll.... Suddenly, she gave a violent start: she saw Brauws, sitting on a bench. She felt as if she would faint; and, without knowing what she was doing, she turned round and walked back.... By this time, she had lost all her self-command. He had seen her, however, and his hand had already gone up to his hat. Suddenly, she heard his step behind her; he came up with her:“Is this how you run away from your friends?”he said, making an attempt to joke, but in obvious astonishment.She looked at him; and he was struck with her confusion.“Don’t be angry,” she said, frankly, “but I was startled at seeing you.”“I was not welcome,” he said, roughly. “Forgive me, mevrouw. I ought not to have come after you. But I’m a tactless beggar in these matters. I am not one of your society-men.”“Don’t be angry,” she repeated, almost entreatingly. “Society indeed! I certainly showed myself no society-woman ... to ... unexpectedly to....”She did not know what she wanted to say.“To turn your back on me,” he said, completing the sentence.“To turn my back on you,” she repeated.“Well, now that I have said good-morning....”He lifted his hat, moved as though to go back.“Stay!” she entreated. “Walk a little way with me. Now that I happen to have met you....”“I came back yesterday ... I meant to call on you to-day or to-morrow....”“Walk with me,” she said, almost entreatingly. “I want to speak to you....”“What about?”“I suggested to Henri....”She drew a deep breath; there were people passing.They were near the Ponds. She ceased speaking; and they walked on silently....“I suggested to Henri,” she repeated, at last, “that we should....”The word died away on her lips, but he understood. They were both silent, both walked on without speaking. He led the way; and it seemed to her that they were making for a goal, she knew not where, which he would know....At last, she said:“I wanted ... as you are our friend ... to tell you....”He was determined to make her say the word:“You suggested what?”“That we should be divorced....”They walked on for some minutes. Suddenly, round about her, she saw the dunes, the distant sea, the sea which she had divined the night before, over which the pale gleams, the lightning-flashes had revealed themselves. Now, the sky overhead was revealed, a vague opal, with white clouds curling like steam....“I suggested that we should be divorced,” she repeated.He drew a breath, in the salt breath of the sea, even as he had breathed in the Alps, when contemplating those ice-bound horizons. And he remembered ... that vision ... and the yearning ... for the one soul ... the meeting with which wouldhave been a consolation amid the constant disappointment encountered with the many souls, the thousands.... And a swift, keen hope seemed to flash before him ... not only of having found at last ... in silence ... but of venturing to utter it ... once; and so keen, so dazzling was the hope that at first he did not hear her say:“But Henri ... thinks it is better ... not....”“What?” he asked, as though deaf, as though blind.She repeated:“Henri thinks it is better not.... Because of our boy ... of Addie....”The keen hope had flashed for only a second, swiftly, with its dizzying rays....Uttered it would never be.... To have found in silence: alas, that was all illusion ... a dream ... when one is very young....“He is right,” he said, in a low voice.“Is he right?” she asked, sadly. And, more firmly, she repeated, “Yes, he is right....”“I should have been sorry ... for Addie’s sake,” he said.“Yes,” she repeated, as though in a trance. “I should have been sorry for Addie’s sake. But I had thought that I should be able to live at last—my God, at last!—in absolute truth and sincerity....and not in a narrow ring of convention, not in terror of people and what they may think absurd and cannot understand ... and ... and....”“And...?” he asked.“And ... in that thought, in that hope ... I had forgotten my boy. And yet he is the reality!”“And yet he ... is the reality.”“And now I am sacrificing ... the dream ... the illusion ... to him.”“Yes ... the dream ... the illusion,” he said, with a smile that was full of pain.“It hurts me!” she confessed, with a sob. “Yesterday—oh, only yesterday, last night!—I thought that the dream, the illusion ... was truth.... But what for young people can be a dream, an illusion ... which comes true....”“Is at our age....”“Absurd?” she asked, still wavering.“Not absurd perhaps ... but impossible. We go bent under too heavy a burden of the past to permit ourselves youthful dreams and illusions. We no longer have any right ... even to memories....”“I have some ... from my childhood,” she stammered, vaguely.“There are no memories left for us,” he said, gently, with his smile that was full of pain.“No, there are none left for us,” she repeated.And she confessed, “I have dreamed ... and thought ... too late. I ... I have begun to live too late....”“I,” he said, “I thought ... that I had lived; but I have done nothing ... but seek....”“You never found?”“Perhaps ... almost. But, when I had found ... I was not allowed to put out my hand....”“Because ... of the past?” she asked, softly.“And of the present. Because of whatisand has younger, fresher rights than mine ... which are no rights ... but the forbidden illusions of an old man....”“Not old....”“Older every day. He alone is in the prime of life ... who has found ... or thinks that he has found....”“Yes, that is so,” she said; and her voice sounded like a wail. “I have begun to live too late. I could have lived ... even now ... perhaps; but it is all too late. I once told you ... that I was abdicating my youth....”“Once, months ago....”“Since then, I have thought, dreamt, lived too much ... not to feel young ... for a few moments.... But it was all an illusion ... and it is all too late....”They looked at each other. He bowed his head,in gentle acquiescence, with his smile that was full of pain:“Yes, it is so,” he said; and it was almost as if he were joking. “Come, let us be strong. I shall go on seeking ... and you....”“Oh, I have my boy!” she murmured. “He hasalwayscomforted me.”They walked back slowly and took leave of each other at the door, a friends’ leave-taking.“Will you come again soon?” she asked.“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, you no sooner see me than I am gone.... I may go to England in the autumn, to lecture on Peace. The world is full of mighty problems; and we ... we are pigmies ... in the tiny worlds of our own selves....”“Yes ... we are nothing....”He left her; she was conscious of a sort of farewell in the pressure of his hand. She went in, with her head swimming; and her son was there. And she embraced him, as though asking his forgiveness.“Addie,” she said, softly, “Papa was right, Papa was right.... I believe that I now know for certain, dear, that I know for certain that Papa was right.... Oh, Addie, whatever I may lose ... you will not let me lose you?...”

Chapter XXX

Conviction had conquered doubt and reigned triumphant. When Constance awoke early that morning, she was full of proud, calm confidence, as though she knew the future positively. She hesitated to go to her husband in his room; and he seemed to avoid her too, for as early as seven o’clock she saw him, from her window, riding off on his bicycle. Since their conversation, she had not seen him, did not know what he thought; and it struck her that he was not dashing away, as he had done so often lately, like a madman, but that he pedalled along quietly, with a certain melancholy resignation in his face, which she just saw flickering past under his bicycling-cap.She listened to hear if Addie was awake, but he seemed to be still asleep; also it was holiday-time. And she began to think of Van Vreeswijck and made up her mind to write to him, just a line, to ask him to come, a single line which however would at once allow him to read, between the letters, that Marianne could not love him.... And, while thinking, with a tender pity for him amid her own calm certainty, she bit her pen, looked out of the window....The August morning was already sunny at that hour: there was a blue sky with white, fleecy clouds,which passed like flocks of snowy sheep through a blue meadow; the wind urged the sheep before it, like an impetuous drover. And, while she searched for those difficult words, her mind recalled the night before and the lightning yonder, above the sea, which she divined in the distance.... It was strange, but now, in that morning light, with that placid sky at which she gazed, thinking of Van Vreeswijck and how to tell him in a single, merciful word—with that summer blue full of fleecy white, at which she was gazing so fixedly after the ecstasy and winged bliss that had uplifted her the night before—it was as if her calm, proud confidence in her knowledge of the future was wavering.... She did not know why, for after all she thought that Henri would consent to their divorcing....They would be divorced....And Marianne would....Suddenly, she began to write. She wrote more than she intended to write: she now wrote the truth straight away, in an impulse of honesty, and at the end of her letter she asked Van Vreeswijck to call on her that evening.She had just finished, when Addie came in. He kissed her and waited until she had signed her letter.“Why aren’t you bicycling with Papa?” she asked.He said that his father had asked him to speak to her....And now, sitting beside her, with her hand in his, he told her, without once mentioning Marianne’s name, what Papa had said. His calm, almost cold, business-like words sobered her completely, while she continued pensively to look at the sky, which seemed now to be wearing a blue smile of ignorance and indifference.... Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.... Not that her thoughts took any definite form, for first the ideal vision whose realization had seemed so certain, then the morning doubts and now the disenchantment of the sober facts had all followed too swiftly upon one another; and she could not take it all in; she did not know what she thought. It only seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.Automatically, she said:“Perhaps it is better so.”She had not expected it!She had never thought that Henri’s answer would be the one which she now heard from the mouth of their son!Did one ever know another person, though one lived with that person for years? Did she know her son, did she know herself?But the boy held her hand affectionately.And he read the stupefaction in her eyes:“Tell me, honestly, Mamma. Are you disappointed?”She was silent, gazed at the placid sky.“Would you rather have started a fresh life ... away from Papa?”She bowed her head, let it rest upon his shoulder:“Addie,” she said.She made an attempt to pick her words, but her honesty was once more too strong for her:“Yes,” she said, simply.“Then you would rather have had it so ... for your own sake?”“I would rather have had it so, yes.”They were silent.“I had even pictured it ... like that,” she said, presently.“Shall I speak to Papa again then, Mamma? If I tell him that you had already been thinking of it....”“You believe...?”“He will agree.”“Do you think so?”“If it means the “happiness of both of you....”“Tell me what Papa said.”“I can’t remember exactly.... Only Papa thought ... that not to see me for six months at a time would be more than he could bear.”“Is that all that Papa said?”“Yes.”But he gave just a smile of melancholy resignation; and his look told that that was not all. She understood. She understood that they had spoken of Marianne.“So Papa....” she repeated.“Would rather stay withus, Mamma.”“With us,” she repeated. “We three together?”“Yes.”“It means going on living ... a lie,” she said, in a blank voice.“Then I will speak to Papa again.”“No, Addie.”“Why not?...”“No, don’t do that. Don’t ask Papa ... to think it over again. It is perhaps too late, after all; and besides ... Papa is right. About you.”“About me?”“He could not go six months without you. And I....”“And you, Mamma....”“I couldn’t either.”“Yes, you could.”“No, I couldn’t either.”She suddenly passed her hands along his face, along his shoulders, his knees, as though she wished to feel him, to feel the reality ... the reality of her life. He ... he was the real thing, the truth; but all the rest between her husband and her wasfalsehood, remained falsehood ... because of people. Could they not even for Addie’s sake purge that falsehood into truth? No, no, not even for him. Would falsehood then always cleave to them?...“We are too small,” she thought and murmured her thought aloud.“What did you say?”“Nothing.... Very well, Addie.... Tell Papa that it shall be as he says, that I am quite content ... that I could not do without you either ... for six months!”She looked at him, looked into his serious blue eyes, as though she had forgotten him and were now remembering him for the first time. Six months ... six months without him! The new life, the new paths, the new cities, on those far-off, new horizons ... and six months ... six months without Addie!...Had she then been dreaming? Had she just been dazzled by that glittering vision? Was it just intoxication, ecstasy? Was it just glamour and enchantment?...He left her. She dressed and went downstairs.She felt as if she were back from a long journey and seeing her house again after an absence of months. Her movements were almost like those of a sleep-walker; the house seemed something remote and impersonal, though she had always loved it,looked after it, made it her beautiful home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely evening of inward conviction.... The morning had dawned, placid, with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that ... and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne very much ... that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne, she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than men.... She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual, everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that, if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him, she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness with the man whom she loved and who—she felt it!—loved her. She saw that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated because of her son!... Her son! He was certain to be leaving them soon in any case ...to seek his own life!... Her son! To provide him for a few years more with the paternal house, that wretched fabric of lies, which he, the boy, alone kept together ... for his sake and for the sake of that joint falsehood, she would have to reject the new life of truth!... It was as if she were standing in a maze; but she was certain that she would not have hesitated in that maze, if the decision had been left to her ... that she would have known how to take the path of simple honesty ... that she would have elected to separate, in spite of Addie ... that she loved her new life—and the stranger—more than her child!She had learnt to know herself in that new atmosphere of pure truth; and now ... now she saw so far into those translucent depths that she was frightened and shuddered as in the presence of something monstrous; for it seemed monstrous to her to place anything above her child, above the dear solace of so many years....Just then Van der Welcke came home; she heard him put away his bicycle, go up the stairs ... and then turn back, as if reflecting that he could no longer avoid his wife. He entered, abruptly. She, trembling, had sat down, because she felt on the verge of falling....“Has Addie told you?” he asked.“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.“And ... you think it is the best thing?...”“Yes ... I do....”“So everything remains....” he said, hesitatingly.“As it was,” she replied, almost inaudibly; and her voice hesitated also.“He told you ... the reason?” he went on.“Yes.”“I could not do without him ... all the time that he would be with you, Constance. And you couldn’t do without the boy either, could you, while he was with me?”“No,” she said, automatically; and, as her voice failed her, she repeated, more firmly, “No, I should not be able to do without him.”At that moment, she did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. Only she had a vague sensation ... as though that fair, unsullied truth were retreating a little farther from her ... like a glittering cloud....“Then we might try to be more patient with each other,” he said. “But still I should like to tell you, Constance, that I appreciate your thought ... your intention....”“Yes,” she said, vaguely.“Your thought for me....”“Yes.”But she now found it impossible to let that retreating truth slip still farther from her; and she said:“I was thinking of myself also, Henri ... butit was not clear to me what I thought.... I don’t quite know.... Henri, it is better like this, for everything to remain ... as it was.”“And we both of us love our boy.”“Yes, both of us....”He saw her turn very pale as she leant back in her chair, her arms hanging limply beside her. He had a sudden impulse to say something kind, to give her a kiss; but at the same time he was conscious that neither his words nor his caress would reach her. And he thought, what was the good of it? They had no love for each other. They would remain strangers, in spite of all that they had felt for each other during these days: she suggesting for his happiness something dead against convention; he thrilling with genuine gratitude....“Well, that is settled then,” was all that he said in conclusion, quietly; and he went out, gently closing the door behind him.She did not move, but sat there, gazing dully into space. Yes, she had counted her son a lesser thing than her new life! That was the simple truth, just as much as the new life itself.... And now ... now, as though her mind were wandering, she saw that new life like a crystal city around her, threatening to crack, to rend asunder, to be shattered in one mighty spasm of despair. Her eyes began to burn from staring into those distant, cruel thoughts. In her breast she felt a physical pain.The house, the room stifled her. She felt impelled to fly from that house, from the narrow circles, which whirled giddily around her, to fly from herself. She was so much perplexed in her own being, no longer knowing what was right, what was honest, what true ... that she yearned for space and air. Her breast was wrung with grief and that gasping for breath. Still, she controlled herself, took up a hat, pinned it on and found the strength to say to the servant:“Truitje, I am going out....”She was outside now, in the road. She had become afraid of the loneliness of her room and of herself, a loneliness which in other ways had become so dear to her. Now she was seeking something more than spaciousness of air and forest; but the road, in which a few people were walking, made her keep herself under control. She turned down a side-path, went through the Woods. Here again there were people taking their morning stroll.... Suddenly, she gave a violent start: she saw Brauws, sitting on a bench. She felt as if she would faint; and, without knowing what she was doing, she turned round and walked back.... By this time, she had lost all her self-command. He had seen her, however, and his hand had already gone up to his hat. Suddenly, she heard his step behind her; he came up with her:“Is this how you run away from your friends?”he said, making an attempt to joke, but in obvious astonishment.She looked at him; and he was struck with her confusion.“Don’t be angry,” she said, frankly, “but I was startled at seeing you.”“I was not welcome,” he said, roughly. “Forgive me, mevrouw. I ought not to have come after you. But I’m a tactless beggar in these matters. I am not one of your society-men.”“Don’t be angry,” she repeated, almost entreatingly. “Society indeed! I certainly showed myself no society-woman ... to ... unexpectedly to....”She did not know what she wanted to say.“To turn your back on me,” he said, completing the sentence.“To turn my back on you,” she repeated.“Well, now that I have said good-morning....”He lifted his hat, moved as though to go back.“Stay!” she entreated. “Walk a little way with me. Now that I happen to have met you....”“I came back yesterday ... I meant to call on you to-day or to-morrow....”“Walk with me,” she said, almost entreatingly. “I want to speak to you....”“What about?”“I suggested to Henri....”She drew a deep breath; there were people passing.They were near the Ponds. She ceased speaking; and they walked on silently....“I suggested to Henri,” she repeated, at last, “that we should....”The word died away on her lips, but he understood. They were both silent, both walked on without speaking. He led the way; and it seemed to her that they were making for a goal, she knew not where, which he would know....At last, she said:“I wanted ... as you are our friend ... to tell you....”He was determined to make her say the word:“You suggested what?”“That we should be divorced....”They walked on for some minutes. Suddenly, round about her, she saw the dunes, the distant sea, the sea which she had divined the night before, over which the pale gleams, the lightning-flashes had revealed themselves. Now, the sky overhead was revealed, a vague opal, with white clouds curling like steam....“I suggested that we should be divorced,” she repeated.He drew a breath, in the salt breath of the sea, even as he had breathed in the Alps, when contemplating those ice-bound horizons. And he remembered ... that vision ... and the yearning ... for the one soul ... the meeting with which wouldhave been a consolation amid the constant disappointment encountered with the many souls, the thousands.... And a swift, keen hope seemed to flash before him ... not only of having found at last ... in silence ... but of venturing to utter it ... once; and so keen, so dazzling was the hope that at first he did not hear her say:“But Henri ... thinks it is better ... not....”“What?” he asked, as though deaf, as though blind.She repeated:“Henri thinks it is better not.... Because of our boy ... of Addie....”The keen hope had flashed for only a second, swiftly, with its dizzying rays....Uttered it would never be.... To have found in silence: alas, that was all illusion ... a dream ... when one is very young....“He is right,” he said, in a low voice.“Is he right?” she asked, sadly. And, more firmly, she repeated, “Yes, he is right....”“I should have been sorry ... for Addie’s sake,” he said.“Yes,” she repeated, as though in a trance. “I should have been sorry for Addie’s sake. But I had thought that I should be able to live at last—my God, at last!—in absolute truth and sincerity....and not in a narrow ring of convention, not in terror of people and what they may think absurd and cannot understand ... and ... and....”“And...?” he asked.“And ... in that thought, in that hope ... I had forgotten my boy. And yet he is the reality!”“And yet he ... is the reality.”“And now I am sacrificing ... the dream ... the illusion ... to him.”“Yes ... the dream ... the illusion,” he said, with a smile that was full of pain.“It hurts me!” she confessed, with a sob. “Yesterday—oh, only yesterday, last night!—I thought that the dream, the illusion ... was truth.... But what for young people can be a dream, an illusion ... which comes true....”“Is at our age....”“Absurd?” she asked, still wavering.“Not absurd perhaps ... but impossible. We go bent under too heavy a burden of the past to permit ourselves youthful dreams and illusions. We no longer have any right ... even to memories....”“I have some ... from my childhood,” she stammered, vaguely.“There are no memories left for us,” he said, gently, with his smile that was full of pain.“No, there are none left for us,” she repeated.And she confessed, “I have dreamed ... and thought ... too late. I ... I have begun to live too late....”“I,” he said, “I thought ... that I had lived; but I have done nothing ... but seek....”“You never found?”“Perhaps ... almost. But, when I had found ... I was not allowed to put out my hand....”“Because ... of the past?” she asked, softly.“And of the present. Because of whatisand has younger, fresher rights than mine ... which are no rights ... but the forbidden illusions of an old man....”“Not old....”“Older every day. He alone is in the prime of life ... who has found ... or thinks that he has found....”“Yes, that is so,” she said; and her voice sounded like a wail. “I have begun to live too late. I could have lived ... even now ... perhaps; but it is all too late. I once told you ... that I was abdicating my youth....”“Once, months ago....”“Since then, I have thought, dreamt, lived too much ... not to feel young ... for a few moments.... But it was all an illusion ... and it is all too late....”They looked at each other. He bowed his head,in gentle acquiescence, with his smile that was full of pain:“Yes, it is so,” he said; and it was almost as if he were joking. “Come, let us be strong. I shall go on seeking ... and you....”“Oh, I have my boy!” she murmured. “He hasalwayscomforted me.”They walked back slowly and took leave of each other at the door, a friends’ leave-taking.“Will you come again soon?” she asked.“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, you no sooner see me than I am gone.... I may go to England in the autumn, to lecture on Peace. The world is full of mighty problems; and we ... we are pigmies ... in the tiny worlds of our own selves....”“Yes ... we are nothing....”He left her; she was conscious of a sort of farewell in the pressure of his hand. She went in, with her head swimming; and her son was there. And she embraced him, as though asking his forgiveness.“Addie,” she said, softly, “Papa was right, Papa was right.... I believe that I now know for certain, dear, that I know for certain that Papa was right.... Oh, Addie, whatever I may lose ... you will not let me lose you?...”

Conviction had conquered doubt and reigned triumphant. When Constance awoke early that morning, she was full of proud, calm confidence, as though she knew the future positively. She hesitated to go to her husband in his room; and he seemed to avoid her too, for as early as seven o’clock she saw him, from her window, riding off on his bicycle. Since their conversation, she had not seen him, did not know what he thought; and it struck her that he was not dashing away, as he had done so often lately, like a madman, but that he pedalled along quietly, with a certain melancholy resignation in his face, which she just saw flickering past under his bicycling-cap.

She listened to hear if Addie was awake, but he seemed to be still asleep; also it was holiday-time. And she began to think of Van Vreeswijck and made up her mind to write to him, just a line, to ask him to come, a single line which however would at once allow him to read, between the letters, that Marianne could not love him.... And, while thinking, with a tender pity for him amid her own calm certainty, she bit her pen, looked out of the window....

The August morning was already sunny at that hour: there was a blue sky with white, fleecy clouds,which passed like flocks of snowy sheep through a blue meadow; the wind urged the sheep before it, like an impetuous drover. And, while she searched for those difficult words, her mind recalled the night before and the lightning yonder, above the sea, which she divined in the distance.... It was strange, but now, in that morning light, with that placid sky at which she gazed, thinking of Van Vreeswijck and how to tell him in a single, merciful word—with that summer blue full of fleecy white, at which she was gazing so fixedly after the ecstasy and winged bliss that had uplifted her the night before—it was as if her calm, proud confidence in her knowledge of the future was wavering.... She did not know why, for after all she thought that Henri would consent to their divorcing....

They would be divorced....

And Marianne would....

Suddenly, she began to write. She wrote more than she intended to write: she now wrote the truth straight away, in an impulse of honesty, and at the end of her letter she asked Van Vreeswijck to call on her that evening.

She had just finished, when Addie came in. He kissed her and waited until she had signed her letter.

“Why aren’t you bicycling with Papa?” she asked.

He said that his father had asked him to speak to her....

And now, sitting beside her, with her hand in his, he told her, without once mentioning Marianne’s name, what Papa had said. His calm, almost cold, business-like words sobered her completely, while she continued pensively to look at the sky, which seemed now to be wearing a blue smile of ignorance and indifference.... Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.... Not that her thoughts took any definite form, for first the ideal vision whose realization had seemed so certain, then the morning doubts and now the disenchantment of the sober facts had all followed too swiftly upon one another; and she could not take it all in; she did not know what she thought. It only seemed to her as if she had been dreaming.

Automatically, she said:

“Perhaps it is better so.”

She had not expected it!

She had never thought that Henri’s answer would be the one which she now heard from the mouth of their son!

Did one ever know another person, though one lived with that person for years? Did she know her son, did she know herself?

But the boy held her hand affectionately.

And he read the stupefaction in her eyes:

“Tell me, honestly, Mamma. Are you disappointed?”

She was silent, gazed at the placid sky.

“Would you rather have started a fresh life ... away from Papa?”

She bowed her head, let it rest upon his shoulder:

“Addie,” she said.

She made an attempt to pick her words, but her honesty was once more too strong for her:

“Yes,” she said, simply.

“Then you would rather have had it so ... for your own sake?”

“I would rather have had it so, yes.”

They were silent.

“I had even pictured it ... like that,” she said, presently.

“Shall I speak to Papa again then, Mamma? If I tell him that you had already been thinking of it....”

“You believe...?”

“He will agree.”

“Do you think so?”

“If it means the “happiness of both of you....”

“Tell me what Papa said.”

“I can’t remember exactly.... Only Papa thought ... that not to see me for six months at a time would be more than he could bear.”

“Is that all that Papa said?”

“Yes.”

But he gave just a smile of melancholy resignation; and his look told that that was not all. She understood. She understood that they had spoken of Marianne.

“So Papa....” she repeated.

“Would rather stay withus, Mamma.”

“With us,” she repeated. “We three together?”

“Yes.”

“It means going on living ... a lie,” she said, in a blank voice.

“Then I will speak to Papa again.”

“No, Addie.”

“Why not?...”

“No, don’t do that. Don’t ask Papa ... to think it over again. It is perhaps too late, after all; and besides ... Papa is right. About you.”

“About me?”

“He could not go six months without you. And I....”

“And you, Mamma....”

“I couldn’t either.”

“Yes, you could.”

“No, I couldn’t either.”

She suddenly passed her hands along his face, along his shoulders, his knees, as though she wished to feel him, to feel the reality ... the reality of her life. He ... he was the real thing, the truth; but all the rest between her husband and her wasfalsehood, remained falsehood ... because of people. Could they not even for Addie’s sake purge that falsehood into truth? No, no, not even for him. Would falsehood then always cleave to them?...

“We are too small,” she thought and murmured her thought aloud.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.... Very well, Addie.... Tell Papa that it shall be as he says, that I am quite content ... that I could not do without you either ... for six months!”

She looked at him, looked into his serious blue eyes, as though she had forgotten him and were now remembering him for the first time. Six months ... six months without him! The new life, the new paths, the new cities, on those far-off, new horizons ... and six months ... six months without Addie!...

Had she then been dreaming? Had she just been dazzled by that glittering vision? Was it just intoxication, ecstasy? Was it just glamour and enchantment?...

He left her. She dressed and went downstairs.

She felt as if she were back from a long journey and seeing her house again after an absence of months. Her movements were almost like those of a sleep-walker; the house seemed something remote and impersonal, though she had always loved it,looked after it, made it her beautiful home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely evening of inward conviction.... The morning had dawned, placid, with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that ... and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne very much ... that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne, she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than men.... She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual, everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that, if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him, she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness with the man whom she loved and who—she felt it!—loved her. She saw that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated because of her son!... Her son! He was certain to be leaving them soon in any case ...to seek his own life!... Her son! To provide him for a few years more with the paternal house, that wretched fabric of lies, which he, the boy, alone kept together ... for his sake and for the sake of that joint falsehood, she would have to reject the new life of truth!... It was as if she were standing in a maze; but she was certain that she would not have hesitated in that maze, if the decision had been left to her ... that she would have known how to take the path of simple honesty ... that she would have elected to separate, in spite of Addie ... that she loved her new life—and the stranger—more than her child!

She had learnt to know herself in that new atmosphere of pure truth; and now ... now she saw so far into those translucent depths that she was frightened and shuddered as in the presence of something monstrous; for it seemed monstrous to her to place anything above her child, above the dear solace of so many years....

Just then Van der Welcke came home; she heard him put away his bicycle, go up the stairs ... and then turn back, as if reflecting that he could no longer avoid his wife. He entered, abruptly. She, trembling, had sat down, because she felt on the verge of falling....

“Has Addie told you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.

“And ... you think it is the best thing?...”

“Yes ... I do....”

“So everything remains....” he said, hesitatingly.

“As it was,” she replied, almost inaudibly; and her voice hesitated also.

“He told you ... the reason?” he went on.

“Yes.”

“I could not do without him ... all the time that he would be with you, Constance. And you couldn’t do without the boy either, could you, while he was with me?”

“No,” she said, automatically; and, as her voice failed her, she repeated, more firmly, “No, I should not be able to do without him.”

At that moment, she did not know if she was speaking the truth or not. Only she had a vague sensation ... as though that fair, unsullied truth were retreating a little farther from her ... like a glittering cloud....

“Then we might try to be more patient with each other,” he said. “But still I should like to tell you, Constance, that I appreciate your thought ... your intention....”

“Yes,” she said, vaguely.

“Your thought for me....”

“Yes.”

But she now found it impossible to let that retreating truth slip still farther from her; and she said:

“I was thinking of myself also, Henri ... butit was not clear to me what I thought.... I don’t quite know.... Henri, it is better like this, for everything to remain ... as it was.”

“And we both of us love our boy.”

“Yes, both of us....”

He saw her turn very pale as she leant back in her chair, her arms hanging limply beside her. He had a sudden impulse to say something kind, to give her a kiss; but at the same time he was conscious that neither his words nor his caress would reach her. And he thought, what was the good of it? They had no love for each other. They would remain strangers, in spite of all that they had felt for each other during these days: she suggesting for his happiness something dead against convention; he thrilling with genuine gratitude....

“Well, that is settled then,” was all that he said in conclusion, quietly; and he went out, gently closing the door behind him.

She did not move, but sat there, gazing dully into space. Yes, she had counted her son a lesser thing than her new life! That was the simple truth, just as much as the new life itself.... And now ... now, as though her mind were wandering, she saw that new life like a crystal city around her, threatening to crack, to rend asunder, to be shattered in one mighty spasm of despair. Her eyes began to burn from staring into those distant, cruel thoughts. In her breast she felt a physical pain.The house, the room stifled her. She felt impelled to fly from that house, from the narrow circles, which whirled giddily around her, to fly from herself. She was so much perplexed in her own being, no longer knowing what was right, what was honest, what true ... that she yearned for space and air. Her breast was wrung with grief and that gasping for breath. Still, she controlled herself, took up a hat, pinned it on and found the strength to say to the servant:

“Truitje, I am going out....”

She was outside now, in the road. She had become afraid of the loneliness of her room and of herself, a loneliness which in other ways had become so dear to her. Now she was seeking something more than spaciousness of air and forest; but the road, in which a few people were walking, made her keep herself under control. She turned down a side-path, went through the Woods. Here again there were people taking their morning stroll.... Suddenly, she gave a violent start: she saw Brauws, sitting on a bench. She felt as if she would faint; and, without knowing what she was doing, she turned round and walked back.... By this time, she had lost all her self-command. He had seen her, however, and his hand had already gone up to his hat. Suddenly, she heard his step behind her; he came up with her:

“Is this how you run away from your friends?”he said, making an attempt to joke, but in obvious astonishment.

She looked at him; and he was struck with her confusion.

“Don’t be angry,” she said, frankly, “but I was startled at seeing you.”

“I was not welcome,” he said, roughly. “Forgive me, mevrouw. I ought not to have come after you. But I’m a tactless beggar in these matters. I am not one of your society-men.”

“Don’t be angry,” she repeated, almost entreatingly. “Society indeed! I certainly showed myself no society-woman ... to ... unexpectedly to....”

She did not know what she wanted to say.

“To turn your back on me,” he said, completing the sentence.

“To turn my back on you,” she repeated.

“Well, now that I have said good-morning....”

He lifted his hat, moved as though to go back.

“Stay!” she entreated. “Walk a little way with me. Now that I happen to have met you....”

“I came back yesterday ... I meant to call on you to-day or to-morrow....”

“Walk with me,” she said, almost entreatingly. “I want to speak to you....”

“What about?”

“I suggested to Henri....”

She drew a deep breath; there were people passing.They were near the Ponds. She ceased speaking; and they walked on silently....

“I suggested to Henri,” she repeated, at last, “that we should....”

The word died away on her lips, but he understood. They were both silent, both walked on without speaking. He led the way; and it seemed to her that they were making for a goal, she knew not where, which he would know....

At last, she said:

“I wanted ... as you are our friend ... to tell you....”

He was determined to make her say the word:

“You suggested what?”

“That we should be divorced....”

They walked on for some minutes. Suddenly, round about her, she saw the dunes, the distant sea, the sea which she had divined the night before, over which the pale gleams, the lightning-flashes had revealed themselves. Now, the sky overhead was revealed, a vague opal, with white clouds curling like steam....

“I suggested that we should be divorced,” she repeated.

He drew a breath, in the salt breath of the sea, even as he had breathed in the Alps, when contemplating those ice-bound horizons. And he remembered ... that vision ... and the yearning ... for the one soul ... the meeting with which wouldhave been a consolation amid the constant disappointment encountered with the many souls, the thousands.... And a swift, keen hope seemed to flash before him ... not only of having found at last ... in silence ... but of venturing to utter it ... once; and so keen, so dazzling was the hope that at first he did not hear her say:

“But Henri ... thinks it is better ... not....”

“What?” he asked, as though deaf, as though blind.

She repeated:

“Henri thinks it is better not.... Because of our boy ... of Addie....”

The keen hope had flashed for only a second, swiftly, with its dizzying rays....

Uttered it would never be.... To have found in silence: alas, that was all illusion ... a dream ... when one is very young....

“He is right,” he said, in a low voice.

“Is he right?” she asked, sadly. And, more firmly, she repeated, “Yes, he is right....”

“I should have been sorry ... for Addie’s sake,” he said.

“Yes,” she repeated, as though in a trance. “I should have been sorry for Addie’s sake. But I had thought that I should be able to live at last—my God, at last!—in absolute truth and sincerity....and not in a narrow ring of convention, not in terror of people and what they may think absurd and cannot understand ... and ... and....”

“And...?” he asked.

“And ... in that thought, in that hope ... I had forgotten my boy. And yet he is the reality!”

“And yet he ... is the reality.”

“And now I am sacrificing ... the dream ... the illusion ... to him.”

“Yes ... the dream ... the illusion,” he said, with a smile that was full of pain.

“It hurts me!” she confessed, with a sob. “Yesterday—oh, only yesterday, last night!—I thought that the dream, the illusion ... was truth.... But what for young people can be a dream, an illusion ... which comes true....”

“Is at our age....”

“Absurd?” she asked, still wavering.

“Not absurd perhaps ... but impossible. We go bent under too heavy a burden of the past to permit ourselves youthful dreams and illusions. We no longer have any right ... even to memories....”

“I have some ... from my childhood,” she stammered, vaguely.

“There are no memories left for us,” he said, gently, with his smile that was full of pain.

“No, there are none left for us,” she repeated.And she confessed, “I have dreamed ... and thought ... too late. I ... I have begun to live too late....”

“I,” he said, “I thought ... that I had lived; but I have done nothing ... but seek....”

“You never found?”

“Perhaps ... almost. But, when I had found ... I was not allowed to put out my hand....”

“Because ... of the past?” she asked, softly.

“And of the present. Because of whatisand has younger, fresher rights than mine ... which are no rights ... but the forbidden illusions of an old man....”

“Not old....”

“Older every day. He alone is in the prime of life ... who has found ... or thinks that he has found....”

“Yes, that is so,” she said; and her voice sounded like a wail. “I have begun to live too late. I could have lived ... even now ... perhaps; but it is all too late. I once told you ... that I was abdicating my youth....”

“Once, months ago....”

“Since then, I have thought, dreamt, lived too much ... not to feel young ... for a few moments.... But it was all an illusion ... and it is all too late....”

They looked at each other. He bowed his head,in gentle acquiescence, with his smile that was full of pain:

“Yes, it is so,” he said; and it was almost as if he were joking. “Come, let us be strong. I shall go on seeking ... and you....”

“Oh, I have my boy!” she murmured. “He hasalwayscomforted me.”

They walked back slowly and took leave of each other at the door, a friends’ leave-taking.

“Will you come again soon?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, you no sooner see me than I am gone.... I may go to England in the autumn, to lecture on Peace. The world is full of mighty problems; and we ... we are pigmies ... in the tiny worlds of our own selves....”

“Yes ... we are nothing....”

He left her; she was conscious of a sort of farewell in the pressure of his hand. She went in, with her head swimming; and her son was there. And she embraced him, as though asking his forgiveness.

“Addie,” she said, softly, “Papa was right, Papa was right.... I believe that I now know for certain, dear, that I know for certain that Papa was right.... Oh, Addie, whatever I may lose ... you will not let me lose you?...”

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