"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 sunshine and of spring, something refreshing 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...."