"I have always loved him. What do you mean?"

"Then it's all right, then it's all right, dear."

"Why are you so sad? There are tears in your eyes."

"The Hague always makes me sad. The cabman took me for a little drive and I pa.s.sed all the houses of the old days ... when we all used to live here."

"Did you feel a longing to come back to the Hague?"

"No, no ... I don't want to come back again."

"Will you always remain at Driebergen?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You have found happiness there, I did not. I remained a stranger."

"Tilly ... one day, perhaps ... you will live there as we do now ...

when we are no longer there...."

"No, never."

"Why not?"

"I dislike the house and everything in it ... down to the very doorposts. And I can't get used to an eerie house ... as you all do."

"But Addie...."

"Exactly: he will never forget the house. What can it be to him? He was not born there!"

"He feels at home there."

"Just so. And I do not.... Oh, I ought never to have married him!"

"Tilly, Tilly, what are you saying?"

"I ought never, never to have married him!"

"And you love him, you love him!"

"I have loved him, oh, very dearly. But he is far above me! I do not reach his level! He sacrifices himself for me. And it breaks my heart to accept his sacrifice. It oppresses me! Oh, Mamma, find something, find something for us! Let him go back to you all ... and let me stay here with the children.... I shall live simply ... in a small upper part ...

and practise economy. It is all my fault, not his. He is good and kind and magnanimous ... but all that oppresses me. I thought at first that we were--how shall I put it?--akin to each other, kindred natures. When we got married, I used not to think about such things ... but I thought in myself, with an unconscious certainty, that we were akin. He was so nice, so straight-forward and so manly; and that rather elderly something appealed to me: I used to look up to it, without being oppressed by it.... Gradually, gradually I began to feel that he was far above me. Things I like leave him indifferent: little luxuries, fashion, gaiety, society. That hypnotism of his: at first, I used to think, 'This is something new, a new method;' now, I don't know: I am becoming afraid of it! I am becoming afraid of him! There is something in him that frightens me.... Oh, I know, it is only because he is so good and so big and because I feel very small and ordinary, because I don't understand those fine, lofty ideals ... about doing good and about poor people and about self-sacrifice!... To him it all comes natural. He is sacrificing himself now for me: he does not care for the Hague or for his practice here, whereas I could never live at Driebergen again.... And, even if I could feel more or less at home among you all ... even then, even then Addie would oppress me!... Do you understand? Oh, you are crying! Of course you are angry with me: you see your son above everything. That is easily understood; and I ... I still have enough love left for Addie to understand it, to understand it all.... But, you see, the love I still have for him ... is an anxious love, it's a sort of self-reproach that I am as I am and not different, a sort of remorse caused by all kinds of things I don't understand and can't express, things that make me cry when I am by myself and oppress me ... oppress me, until I sometimes feel as if I were suffocating!"

"Hush, dear: here he is!"

They both ceased and listened. They heard Addie's voice: coming home, he had met the children outside the house; Constance and Mathilde heard his deep voice sound kindly, playfully, in the hall. He now opened the door, with Jetje on one arm and little Constant toddling by his side with his hand in his father's.

"Mamma!" he exclaimed, in surprise. "I had no idea that you were here!"

"No, my boy, I came up unexpectedly. I brought Marietje with me and left her with her father and mother."

"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"

"I should like to."

"Why, what's the matter with you, Mamma?"

"The matter?"

"And with you, Mathilde?"

"With me?... Nothing."

He saw that they had been talking together. He said nothing more, however, but played with the children for a while and then released himself and gave them over to the nurse, who had come in.

"The youngsters are looking first-rate, aren't they?"

"We shall have lunch in a minute, Mamma," said Mathilde, tonelessly.

Addie sat down beside his mother, took her hand, smiled. Mathilde left the room with her keys.

"Don't fret, Mamma," he said.

"My boy...."

"You're fretting. You look so sad."

"My dear, my dear ... I...."

"What?"

She gave a sob and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was so frightened, so frightened, that it was as though her great dread stifled her and prevented her from breathing. She trembled in his embrace.

"You won't fret, you won't fret, will you, dear?"

"No."

The maid came to lay the table in the dining-room. Constance controlled herself.

"Mamma," he said, jestingly, now that Mathilde also returned, "you're losing all your vanity! That's a nice old blouse to come and see your son in! Look, it's wearing out at the elbows. Do you know you haven't looked at all smart lately?"

"Oh, my dear boy. This blouse is quite good still!"

"Well, I think it's seen its best days. What do you say, Tilly?"

"Why should I get myself up, an old woman like me?" said Constance.

"You'll never be old, Mummie, and a well-turned-out woman must always remain well-turned-out.... Do you remember the old days?"