Musingly, and half listening to Toos, Eline thought of Fabrice, and saw the album in Madame Verstraeten’s hands. And suddenly an idea rose to her mind, like a twig of her vivid fantasy, with which her passion was overgrown. Yes; she would procure an album for herself, with various portraits of him; it would be as a little shrine of her love, in which she could worship the image of her god, unbeknown to any one but herself. A secret joy stole over her features at that resolve, and at the thought that she had so much to conceal from the eyes of others she began to consider herself very important in her own eyes, and to feel herself more and more absorbed by the treasures of her passion. She was happy, and her happiness was mingled with an arch playfulness and secret exultation at the thought that she concealed within herself something that her circle of friends would naturally have considered very foolish and very reprehensible, had they known of it. A girl like her, to be in love with an actor! What would Madame Verstraeten and Betsy and Emilie and Cateau and Frédérique, Henk and Paul and Vincent, what would they all think and say could they suspect that?
And with a half-mocking glance she looked round at her relatives and friends; she thought herself plucky, secretly to defy the conventionalities to such an extent as to dare to be smitten with [[98]]Fabrice! A jocular remark of Emilie’s made her laugh more immoderately than it called for; at the same time she laughed at all who were there, in haughty arrogance at her illicit passion.
“And Mr. van Raat—Mr. Paul, I mean—will be a lawyer, I suppose?” asked Cateau.
What a lot that child had to say about Paul! thought Eline. There was no end of Paul—Paul’s nice voice, and Paul a lawyer——
“I think you rather like Paul, don’t you?” asked Eline.
“Oh, yes; I like him very much,” said Cateau, without hesitation. “Only sometimes, you know, he gets so angry. Fancy, the other day—when we had the tableaux——”
And Eline had to listen to the story of Paul’s anger when they had the tableaux, and of Paul’s cleverness in the grouping.
“She’s not afraid to speak her mind, at all events,” thought Eline; “but then, she need not be exactly smitten, although she talks a great deal about him; if she were she would probably do as I do, and—say nothing.”
It was nearly half-past five; the guests were leaving.
“Then I shall hear you sing together one day?” insisted Cateau.