"Intolerant? Intolerant?" echoed Gerdy, excitedly. "But you didn't see her, the insane way she behaved.... We were on the ice ... and...." She lowered her voice to a whisper, though Granny was not likely to understand. "We were on the ice ... and there were others: the Erzeeles from Utrecht and Johan Erzeele from the Hague, you know, the one who's in the grenadiers.... Yes, I know, Mathilde and he are old acquaintances, she used often to dance with him ... but that's no reason for carrying on with him as she did."
"I say, it wasn't as bad as all that," said Guy, in a tone of palliation.
"Not as bad as all that, not as bad as all that?" repeated Gerdy, very angrily, because Guy, Constance and everybody were making excuses for Mathilde. "Not as bad as all that? Well, if I was married, or even unmarried, I should be ashamed to carry on like that with any man, though I'd met him at a hundred dances!"
"Do let Mathilde enjoy herself," said Constance. "Really, she has so little...."
"So little what?" said Gerdy, almost impertinently. "She has everything, she has everything she could wish for! She has a darling of a husband, she has the sweetest of children ... she has everything...."
"But she sometimes feels ... a little neglected and strange ... among all of us," said Constance, still taking Mathilde's part. "So, if she's a little irresponsible once in a way, I don't grudge it her for a moment."
"But it was more than being irresponsible, it was much worse: she was simply carrying on!"
"For shame, Gerdy! You mustn't be so spiteful."
Gerdy shrugged her shoulders angrily. She simply doted on Aunt Constance; nothing on earth would induce her to quarrel with Aunt Constance: Aunt Constance, who was so kind to all of them; and so she preferred to say nothing. But her dear, eager little soul was up in arms; she was very angry indeed; she pitied Addie. She was so angry, she felt such pity for Addie that really she did not quite understand her own feelings. After all, this was not the first time that Mathilde had annoyed her; she had never liked Mathilde; it was enough to make her spill the tea or the milk if Mathilde entered the room unexpectedly; and so she really could not quite understand why she was so very angry and thinking so much of Addie, simply because Mathilde had carried on so with Johan Erzeele, why it should irritate her so that Constance—on principle, she could understand that much—was taking Mathilde's part, why it should irritate her that Mamma and Emilie were sitting so sad and silent, that Granny was sitting so feeble and silently trembling in her far corner, why it should irritate her that Adèletje and Guy should keep on playing backgammon:
"Three and four...."