“If it’s that, Eline, pay us then and stay here; pay us, and don’t talk any more about an hotel. I won’t be ashamed of it; you may pay me for it if you want to. But stay here—stay.”
Eline started up with her wild staring eyes and her dishevelled hair, which Jeanne brushed in vain from her temples. And she clung to Jeanne with a sudden intensity, as if in her burning grief she plunged into the grateful cooling waters of pity and sympathy.
“Oh, you darling! you angel!” she cried. “Forgive me, I—I did not mean to grieve you, but—but—oh, yes, indeed, I will gladly stay, you are so good. May I stay?”
That afternoon old Madame van Raat and Madame Verstraeten came to see Eline, and endeavoured to persuade her to return to the Nassauplein. Eline, however, refused to receive them. Even Betsy allowed Jeanne to persuade her to call on Eline, and ask her pardon. Jeanne thought it was Betsy’s duty to try and make her peace with her sick sister, and it might have a favourable effect on her. But Betsy Eline would not see either. And in the adjoining room Betsy, with her mother-in-law and her aunt, heard, as Henk had heard that morning in silence and anxiety, how Eline declared to Jeanne that she would not—would not see any one. Only [[245]]Jeanne and no one else would she see about her! Before long Eline’s quarrel with the Van Raats and her flight to the Ferelyns became the general topic of conversation. Of the details of the dispute they did not know much; only, of this they were certain, that in that stormy night Eline had been seen sitting in a carriage with a night-watchman and a young man, and to say the least of it they thought it passing strange! But then Eline had always been rather eccentric. In the winter she had been in the habit of taking early morning walks alone in the wood—what respectable young girl would think of doing such a thing as that? Now—that affair with Erlevoort too, that was a bit mysterious; and now there was that romance with a young man and a night-watchman! It was a pity certainly, for she was really such a nice girl, so pretty and graceful; but had they not always been a strange family, those Veres?
Betsy was mad with spite at this talk, and she scarcely ventured to show herself anywhere, seeking her refuge only at the Verstraetens’ and with Emilie de Woude.
CHAPTER XXV.
A month had elapsed, a month which Eline spent with the Ferelyns, as Jeanne would not allow her to go until she had quite recovered. Reyer had told them that Eline had caught a severe cold which, with the least neglect, might prove fatal. Jeanne in the meantime tended her with gentle care; Frans’s little office she had had fitted up specially for her, and when Eline protested and began again to talk about an hotel, Frans himself declared that he thought he ought not to work so hard, a little rest was necessary for him. Eline, therefore, embraced Jeanne with a passionate gratitude and stayed on, while her violent fits of coughing filled the little house as with a painful echo.
Her cough was a little better now; she felt not quite as much pain on her chest. But she had grown very thin, her eyes were hollow and dull, and her face was wan and sallow. She sat in a [[246]]big chair close to the little stove, and she gazed out of the window and amused herself a little watching the tradesmen—the butcher, the greengrocer, the milkman—as they called from house to house; she amused herself watching the servants who opened the door—a stout, red-faced one here, a tall thin one there, then again the mistress herself, in a black apron and a dirty little lace cap.
Then she rose and looked in the little black-framed glass, simple as all around her was. She expected some one, and she looked eagerly at her face; it was such a long time since she had seen him; what sort of impression would she make on him, with that sallow face and those sunken eyes?