Eline shook her head, quite at a loss for a clue. Meanwhile the fan was passed from hand to hand, and Eline carefully scanned every one’s face, but she could gather not the least sign from any of them. But suddenly Frédérique raised her head, with a look of surprise on her face. She quickly recovered herself, and with apparent indifference approached Eline.
“May I see the case one moment?” she asked.
Eline handed her the case, and Frédérique eagerly scrutinized and felt the gray leather and the gray velvet.
“Have you got the slightest idea who could have sent me that?” asked Eline, and she raised her arms in mock despair.
Frédérique shrugged her shoulders, and laid the case down.
“No—I really don’t know,” she said, somewhat coolly, and she looked with some curiosity into Eline’s hazel eyes.
An indefinable antipathy seemed to her to radiate from out of those gazelle-like eyes, and to lie hidden in the mock despair at the unknown giver. She cast not another glance at the universally admired fan, and during the remainder of the evening she was quieter than ever she had been before.
The torrent of presents had ceased. Madame van Erlevoort asked her guests to leave her two terribly disarranged drawing-rooms, full of paper, straw, bran, and rubbish, when Willem once more opened the doors of the dining-room, and the table, ready laid for supper, looked bright and inviting enough.
It was a gay and lively supper-party. Mr. Verstraeten kept Madame van Erlevoort and Betsy, between whom he was seated, amused with his jokes, and Mathilde, next to Betsy, often joined in the laughter. Henk, seated between his mother and his aunt, wanted nothing; whilst Otto and Eline were busily engaged in conversation, and Etienne chattered noisily with Lili and Marie.
“Freddie, how quiet you are, chère amie,” said Paul, as he took possession of a lobster salad, seeking in vain to set his little neighbour, generally animated enough, a-talking. “Didn’t receive enough presents to your liking, perhaps?”