"And Uncle made a very sweet chaperon," said Guy, chaffingly.

But Gerdy did not say much, looked tired, very pale, constrained. They went upstairs, to their rooms, and Gerdy kissed her mother. But, without the others seeing it, she followed Adeline to her room and suddenly, unable to contain herself, burst into a paroxysm of tears.

"Darling, darling, what is it?"

And the mother, long since broken, took the girl, now breaking, into her arms and it was as though she suddenly wakened from her apathy and felt herself very much a mother.... Oh, she knew that she could not do much for her children, that she was not capable, never had been since Gerrit's death, that without Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie she could not have made anything of her children! Nevertheless, they remained her children; and, if she did not know how to guide her sons in their careers, she did know how to sympathize with her poor Gerdy's sobs.

"Darling, darling, what is it?"

And, dropping into her chair, while Gerdy knelt before her in the folds of her white-tulle frock, she held the pale little face against her and compelled the child to speak, to speak....

"It's nothing," said Gerdy, through her sobs. "I didn't enjoy myself."

"You didn't? Why, what happened?"

"I hardly danced at all."

"Why not?"

"Mamma, it's better to tell you plainly. I'm so unhappy! It's about Johan...."

"Erzeele? Has he proposed to you?"

Gerdy shook her head:

"No, but...."

"But what?"

"In the winter ... skating ... I thought he was fond of me.... It's my own fault: it was silly of me, it was silly.... It wasn't anything....

He was just the same to me as to other girls; and I thought, I thought ... It's nothing, Mamma, it's my own fault, but I thought ... Mamma, I oughtn't to take it so much to heart ... but it makes me very unhappy.... He danced with me, once.... But he danced with Mathilde the whole time.... He was always with her.... People were talking about it.... It was just as if she was mad, as if she didn't think ... that she oughtn't to behave like that ... with Johan.... It struck Uncle Henri too: I could see it by his face. They were together the whole evening and ... you understand.... He paid her attentions ...

shamelessly ... the way he does to married women.... With girls he's different.... I hated him for a moment. But then he came and asked me, for that one dance ... and then I thought ... I oughtn't to have thought it. It's my own fault. I'm very unhappy, Mamma.... Uncle Henri was very angry too ... with Mathilde ... because she wouldn't come back with us to Driebergen.... He gave way and let her stay, to avoid unpleasantness.... But it was ridiculous of her: the carriage is big enough and she would not have been so badly creased.... Oh, she looked lovely, she looked lovely!... She is quite lovely, dressed like that, at a ball.... Addie ought to have come with us.... She was really beautiful, but not--it's wrong of me to say it, I know--not like _us_."

"How do you mean, dear?"

"Not like Aunt Constance and Emilie and you.... She didn't ... she didn't look well-bred.... She looked beautiful, but she looked coa.r.s.e.... If Addie had come, perhaps she would have restrained herself, not worn her dress so low. She was the only one in such a very low frock.... You see, there was something about her ... that repelled me even more than usual: I can't say what and it's very wrong of me, because after all she's Addie's wife and we must be fond of her; but really, she didn't look a lady; and I could see it in people's faces: they thought her very handsome ... but not ... not well-bred.... And ...

after that ... when she did nothing but dance with Johan ... then ...

oh, Mamma, then she looked at me ... and looked at me with a sneer ...

as if she were looking down on me!... I knew that I was not at my best, that I looked pale and thin; my shoulders are not good; and Johan behaved so oddly to me, in such a queer, mocking way: oh, Mamma, he was almost cruel!... I do believe, oh, Mamma, I do believe, that I ... that I'm in love with him! But I oughtn't to tell you and I oughtn't to be like this ... I oughtn't to cry so; but I couldn't help it, I couldn't help it!... I did my best, Mamma, not to show it before Uncle Henri and before Guy, but, oh, Mamma, the whole dance ... the whole dance was a torture!"

Adeline mingled her sobs with Gerdy's:

"My darling, my poor, poor darling!"

"Mamma! Oh, Mamma!"

"What is it, my poor dear?"

"Listen, Mamma!"

"What?"

"Don't you hear? The sound ... upstairs!"

"Hush!... Hush!... The sound...."

"Is dragging itself...."

"Downstairs. It's like a footstep. It's always like that."

"Oh, Mamma, I'm frightened!"

"It's nothing, dear: the wind, a draught, a board creaking...."

"Oh, but I'm frightened!"

"It's nothing.... I opened the door once ... to look."

"You dared to?"

"Yes. It was nothing."

"There was nothing to see?..."

"No. It was only very draughty."

"And everything's closed!"

"It's nothing, it's nothing, dear."

"Now it's dragging itself away ... down below."

"It's the draught.... Oh, my poor, poor darling!"

"Oh, Mamma, I'm unhappy ... and I'm frightened, I'm frightened, I'm frightened!..."

When Mathilde returned next morning, she seemed to perceive a certain displeasure, a coldness in her husband, in her mother-in-law and in all of them; but she decided that perhaps she was mistaken: she was tired, she was unstrung; and, after she had been to see the children, she kept to her own room, where she knew that no one would disturb her, now that Addie had gone out to his patients. And it was not the surmised displeasure, the unwonted fatigue after the ball that made her nervous, as though she was infected by a nervous thrill from all who surrounded her: it was particularly because of Johan Erzeele that she was now walking restlessly round her room, sitting down at the window, getting up again, going in to the children, coming back again, sitting down to the piano, looking over her ball-programme and suddenly tearing it up.... Now, suddenly, she reproached herself with all sorts of things that had happened the night before: for dancing with Johan so often, even though she had known him all her life as a young girl at the Hague, where he was a subaltern in the grenadiers, while his people lived at Utrecht; for flirting with him in so marked a way at supper; for allowing him to speak like that, with his brazen, sensual fashion of making love to her; for knowing and deliberately encouraging his brazenness; lastly, for scarcely preventing him from escorting her on foot--because it was so near--to the hotel, where she had reserved a room.

She had lost her temper, refused, asked for a carriage, and ridden alone to the hotel where she had spent the night; but his offer and the words in which he had couched it had shocked her, had frightened her all through that night, that short night, so that she had not had a moment's sleep. And now she was angry with herself for not summoning up her usual sound sense, so that he had seen how frightened and shocked she was and had laughed at it, with the caressing laugh of his well-shaped mouth.

And, because she was angry with herself, all sorts of nervous excuses went whirling through, all her grievances, great and small, came surging up, as though to defend her against herself, against her own self-reproach. Why couldn't Addie have gone too? Why must he leave her to her own devices like that? Why was she only good for the one thing?

Why did he hold such long conversations, full of strange intensity, with that ailing Marietje? Why did she sometimes, through his kisses, feel a strange chill come out of him and freeze her, so that the spontaneous word grew still and lifeless on her lips and she no longer knew what to say: she only knew that she was losing him, again and again and again, while all the others, down below, were winning him, winning him for themselves! Oh, how the grievances whirled up, fighting against her self-reproach, until at last she burst into tears, sheer nervous tears, such as she had never shed before! And, as though the grievances were winning, she suddenly laid the blame on Addie, on all of them, on her husband's whole family, on Driebergen, on the house full of lunatics and invalids, on the eerie, haunted house where she could not breathe, while they all, down below, found living there so delightful. She blamed them all, blamed the whole house for it, that she was losing her sound sense and had allowed Johan to say all sorts of things to her which otherwise she would never have allowed. And, in her tears, while still blaming him--because she did not see that there was no blame, that no one was to blame for anything, while she was casting about to whom to impute the blame--she longed for her husband, felt that she was still very much in love with him, that she would have liked to embrace him, to clasp him close to her, to weep out her sorrows on his heart, to hear his deep, young, earnest voice, to look into his deep, young earnest eyes, so that she might grow calm again and happy, far away, with him and her children! Now she longed for him to come back; now she looked out down the road; and, when she saw him--the bell was ringing for lunch, because Truitje downstairs had also seen him coming up the road--she ran down and was just in time to kiss him in the morning-room and to whisper:

"Addie, Addie, you do love me?"

"Why, of course, darling!" he answered, gravely and, she thought, almost sadly.

And now, sitting silent at table, feeling all sorts of reproaches around her, she asked herself, was it not his fault, was it not his fault? What she really imagined to be his fault she did not clearly see, for it was all whirling through her mind; she kept on thinking of Johan Erzeele, kept on feeling her self-reproach; and the grievances surged up, like lances, more numerous than before, to defend her against that self-reproach.

Gerdy had not come down to lunch: she was tired, Adeline said. The tone of the conversation was forced; and Mathilde reflected that it was always so when she was there, when they would look at one another askance, in a silent understanding against her, against her....