“Oh, you and Ange are just like two little pups,” cried Etienne. “Miss de Woude, with her double chin, is a turkey!” he whispered, wild with his success, in Ange’s ear, who nearly choked with laughter. “Miss Frantzen is also a turkey, of another kind. Willem the servant is a stately stork, and Dien, the cook at the Verstraetens’, a cockatoo.”
“’Tis a menagerie, a Noah’s ark!” screamed Léonie.
“And Eline?” Paul asked at last.
“Oh, Eline,” repeated Etienne, and reflected. “Sometimes a peacock—sometimes a serpent—at this moment a little dove.”
They shook their head at his extravagant fancies, but still they laughed gaily.
“Etienne is always jolly,” said Eline to Otto, when the little groups were broken up, and she nodded smilingly at Madame van Raat, who had given her seat at the card-table to Emilie. Vincent in the meantime became the butt of the little Eekhofs, who asked him if he were going to open a perfumery store.
“Yes,” answered Otto. “He has no reason to be otherwise, has he? He has all that he desires.” [[146]]
There was something sad in his words, as if that was not the case with himself, and Eline could find nothing to reply. For a while they stood close together, in silence, whilst her trembling hand clasped the fan at her side, and again her thoughts began to stray.
“Have you nothing to say to me?” he whispered softly, but without a tinge of reproach.
She took a deep breath.