Madame van Erlevoort wished to dine a little earlier that day, intending to have her siesta before going to dress. In the evening she was going with Freddie and her two sons to the ball at the Eekhofs’, whilst Madame van Ryssel stayed at home, a quiet, saddened young woman, whose smile but faintly lit up her wax-like face, and who lived but for her children.
By Mathilde’s express desire, the four noisy customers always dined in a separate room, with Miss Frantzen. As for Madame van Erlevoort, there was nothing she would have liked better than to have sat at table with the whole batch of them, Miss Frantzen included, not caring one iota whether her damask table-cloths were swimming in gravy, her glass ware broken to bits, or the preserves mauled about by a set of greasy little fingers. Thus Mathilde had been unable to prevent the children, who dined earlier and whose meal was over sooner, from running in one after another into the dining-room, to the despair of Miss Frantzen, whose round face and terrified eyes would then appear at the half-open [[56]]door. This sort of thing Madame van Erlevoort in her kindliness having tolerated once or twice, soon became the rule, and Mathilde was obliged with a sigh to resign herself to the inevitable. As for Etienne and Frédérique, they only helped to make the youngsters noisier than ever. Otto also played with them, and Mathilde with a smile shrugged her shoulders; she could not help it, let things go as they would.
“No, thank you, Otto, nothing more,” said Frédérique, at the dinner-table. “I can never eat when I am going to a ball; you know that.”
“Is it still like that?” asked Otto. “I always thought that it was only very young girls who could not eat at their first entrée into society. Are you still so nervous? Poor girl!”
“Freddie, what have you been doing to your dress? I hope you have not spoilt anything?” asked Madame van Erlevoort, with some anxiety.
“No, ma; I took Mathilde’s advice and did not touch it at all. Ah! you shall see me this evening,” she continued to Otto; “I shall look quite ethereal in my blue tulle—just fit to be blown away, you know. Hallo! there they come, the young Vandals!”
This was meant for the four little van Ryssels, who now came storming into the room, Nico with an ear-splitting trumpet in his mouth. They came to eat their orange with wine and sugar. Madame van Erlevoort took Nico next to her and gave him his plate full of fruit, and ere long the young rascal was sucking away at the luscious morsels, varying the repast with an occasional blare from his trumpet.
Ernestine, Johan, and Etienne were picking their hardest from one dish, and amid loud laughter their forks got jangled one in another, whilst Freddie told Otto who were coming to the Eekhofs’ that evening.
“There are the Hydrechts, Eline Vere, the van Larens, Françoise Oudendyk. Don’t you think Françoise prettier than Marguerite van Laren? Eh, Otto, which of the two are you going to mash? Oh, Nico! my nerves! Nico!”
Tootterootoo, too, went the trumpet.