“Well?” Eline repeated, at the same time fearing what the next question might be.
“Another time, when we are alone again!” stammered Jeanne, and she rose, dissatisfied, annoyed with herself, feeling ready to burst into tears, after that unsociable dinner and fruitless conversation. Betsy and Emilie were just leaving the boudoir.
Jeanne thought it was time to be going. The three gentlemen came in, and Henk assisted her with her cloak. With a forced cordiality she took her leave, thanking Betsy for her invitation, and again she shivered with annoyance when Eline kissed her cheeks.
“What an awful bore she is, that Jeanne!” said Betsy, after the [[39]]Ferelyns had gone. “She scarcely opened her mouth. What were you talking about together, Eline?”
“Oh—about Dora, and her husband, nothing else.”
“Poor girl!” said Emilie pityingly. “Come, Georges, just fetch my cloak.”
Mina, however, was just coming in with the ladies’ wraps, and de Woude put on his ulster, whilst Henk rubbed his big hands, well pleased at the prospect of spending the evening at home after a nice dinner. The carriage had already been waiting outside in the thawing snow for the last half-hour, with Dirk the coachman and Herman the footman seated on the box, half smothered in their big fur capes.
“Oh, Frans, never ask me to accept another invitation of the van Raats!” said Jeanne, in an imploring voice, as, on her husband’s arm, she shiveringly went splashing along the muddy streets, while, with her little hands benumbed with cold, she constantly endeavoured to keep her cloak fastened, each time that a gust of wind blew the ends open. “Really I don’t feel at home any more with them, with Betsy and Eline.”
He shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. They plodded on with their mud-bespattered shoes, in the flickering light of the street lanterns, whose dull rays were reflected with monotonous regularity in the numerous puddles they had to pass.
The third act of Le Tribut de Zamora had just commenced, when Betsy, Emilie, Eline, and Georges entered their box. There was a full house, and their arrival broke in upon the silence that prevailed in the listening auditorium; there was a rustling of silk and satin; a hundred eyes and opera-glasses were directed to their box, and here and there the question was whispered, “Who are they?”