Dr. Adriaan Part 44

"Yes, when...."

"You brought home that fine photograph from Nice?"

She smiled through her tears:

"My boy, that is so long ago!... You thought me a bundle of vanity then."

"The photograph never leaves my writing-table.... Mamma, you mustn't let yourself go like that."

"Very well, I don't wear this blouse any more. ... But it costs so much to dress nicely ... and we have so many expenses."

"You were not rich in the old days," said Mathilde, piqued at something that she did not understand.

"And yet Mamma wore dresses that cost six hundred francs," said Addie, chaffingly.

"Yes; and now that you are well off...."

"Now I never dream of doing such a thing," said Constance, gently.

The luncheon was quiet, a little melancholy, a little constrained.

Afterwards, things went a little more merrily because Jetje and Constant came downstairs again with their nurse, suddenly, in a very youthful vision of golden hair seen through the open door. Their little voices chirped like those of young birds; and Constance could not refrain from saying how much they all missed them at Driebergen. For there also they were always coming down the stairs, looking so young and so golden, like a vision of the future, to go walking out of doors. Even in the winter they brought a hint of suns.h.i.+ne and of spring, something refres.h.i.+ng of youth and beginning, a promise of future in the old house which was so gloomily full of things of the past, things that hovered about the rooms, gleamed out of the mirrors, trailed, like strange draughts, along the lightly creaking stairs....

Mathilde did not say much; she was silent and sat with her lips closed and her whole face--her eyes half-shut--closed, after that sudden irresistible betrayal of her feelings to her mother-in-law to whom nevertheless she was attracted by no sort of sympathy.

A little while later, Constance' carriage came to fetch her and Addie offered to go to the Van Saetzema's with her and see how Marietje was.

"And what are you doing, Mathilde?" asked Constance, gently.

"I don't know.... I expect I shall go out.... Or I may stay at home...."

Addie went upstairs to get ready; and Constance suddenly took Mathilde in her arms.

"My dear...."

"Mamma...."

"You did well to speak out to me just now.... However sad it made me feel, you did right."

"Oh, why did I do it? I should have done better to hold my tongue."

"No, no. Speak, oh, do speak to Addie too!"

"I have spoken to him so often!"

"Not lately?"

Mathilde shrugged her shoulders:

"No, not so often lately. What's the use? It's not his fault ... it's six of one and half a dozen of the other ... and it can't be helped."

"Very likely. Only...."

"Only what, Mamma?"

"Be careful, Mathilde, I implore you! Oh, do be careful! Everything, everything can come right again.... You are sure to come together again later ... but be careful, be careful. Don't spoil your life."

They looked deep down into each other's eyes.

"Mathilde, I may speak openly to you, mayn't I? Just because it's I, dear, your mother ... who suffered so very much ... because she spoilt her life so ... spoilt it so ... when she was young ... until life became a torture.... I was a young woman, as you are, Mathilde, and ...

and I wasn't happy ... any more than you are, my poor child, at the moment ... and...."

"I know, Mamma," Mathilde replied, shortly.

"Yes, you know ... you know all about it.... Of course you know, dear, though I have not mentioned it to you.... But just ... just because of all that, I may tell you, may I not, to be careful? Oh, do be careful!"

"You are afraid of things that don't exist."

"No, dear, there is nothing.... I know there's nothing ... only...."

"What?"

"You see ... when I arrived this morning...."

"Erzeele was with me."

"Yes."

"He's an old friend."

"I know."

"He came to make an appointment ... to play tennis to-morrow."

"Yes, I heard him."

"There was nothing else."

"He was holding your hand."

"He's an old friend whom I knew as a girl, almost as a child."

"Yes, dear, I know ... but...."

"What do you mean?"

"It _is_ dangerous."

"What is?"