Dr. Adriaan Part 15

"No, Mamma, I'll go and fetch her in."

"Gertrude?" asked Adolphine.

"She means our poor Klaasje," whispered Constance.

"But doesn't Mamma know me?"

"Not ... just now. She'll recognize you presently.... Mamma, don't you know Phine?"

"Phine?" repeated the old lady.

"Adolphine, Mamma. Look, she's come to give you a kiss."

"She's dead," said the old woman ...

"Mamma! Adolphine _dead_? Look, she's _here_!"

The old lady shook her head:

"She's dead," she said, unshakably. "She died ... years ago."

Adolphine turned her head away and began to sob.

"She'll recognize you presently," said Constance, gently, consoling her.

"She's sure to know you presently. Adolphine, I'm so glad to see you."

But Adolphine was sobbing violently: "Mamma doesn't ... _know me!"_

"My dear, she hasn't seen you for so long. I know she'll recognize you later on.... You're staying to lunch, of course...."

"I ... should like to.... Constance, I've come to...."

"Yes?"

"To ask something.... But presently, not now ... I'm too much upset...."

"Let me help you off with your things."

"I'm dreadfully wet ... it's raining so...."

"You've chosen a bad day."

"I didn't want to wait any longer."

"Tell me, what is it, what can I do for you?"

"I can't tell you yet."

Gerdy peeped round the open door:

"Is that Aunt Adolphine?"

"Yes," said Constance.

Marietje and Adeletje followed:

"Is that ... Aunt Adolphine?"

They came in and shook hands.

"Is Klaasje out in the garden?" asked Constance.

"I saw her running about just now."

"You have a busy household ... Constance," said Adolphine, waveringly.

"Yes," said Constance, smiling, "and yet I should miss them if they weren't there. All my daughters ... and my boys."

The girls stood round her: Gerdy, looking very handsome; Adeletje, weak and pale; and Marietje, tall, lank and plain.

"And then you've got ... Emilie ... and Adeline," said Adolphine, counting them shyly.

"Yes," said Constance. "We all keep together now.... Children, Aunt Adolphine's staying to lunch."

Something in her words seemed to ask the girls to leave her alone with Adolphine. In the conservatory, the old woman sat gazing up at the clouds, which came sailing along big and grey, and she heard nothing, paid no attention.

"Adolphine," said Constance, when they were alone once more, "we have a moment before lunch. Come upstairs to my room, then we sha'n't be disturbed."

She put out her hand. Adolphine took it; and Constance led her sister almost mechanically through the pa.s.sages and up the stairs.

"It's a gloomy house," said Adolphine, with a s.h.i.+ver at the sight of the oak doors.

"Yes, it is rather gloomy.... Fortunately, it's large; there's plenty of s.p.a.ce."

"Really?" asked Adolphine, growing interested. "Have you many rooms?"

"Oh, a great many!... When the old man was alive, they were all empty.

Now they are nearly all full."

"Nearly all?"

"Very nearly.... This is my own sitting-room."

They went in.

"It's the furniture from your drawing-room at the Hague," said Adolphine.

"Yes. I can imagine myself at the Hague here."