"I walk down the boulevards every morning, so it's very natural that we should meet. I'm glad to have the opportunity of congratulating you.... Mamma? She's all right, I believe."
"Haven't you seen her lately?"
"I haven't seen her for a week. Are you going to call on her? Then I may as well come too. Shall we have a good lunch somewhere afterwards, or shall I be in the way? If not, come and lunch with me. Not in one of your big restaurants, which everybody knows, but at a place where I'll take you: quite a small place, but exquisite. They have a homard à l'américaine that's simply heavenly!" And he kissed the tips of his fat fingers. "Do you want to go to Mamma's at once? Very well, we'll take a carriage, for she lives a long way off."
He stopped a cab and gave the address:
"Cent-vingt-cinq, Rue Madame."
And he gallantly helped Elly in, then Lot, insisted upon himself taking the little back seat and sat like that, with one foot on the step of the carriage. He enquired conventionally and indifferently after the relations at the Hague, as after strangers whom he had seen once or twice. In the Rue Madame the driver pulled up outside a gate of tall railings, with a fence of boards behind it, so that no one could see in.
"This is the convent where Mamma lives," said Theo.
They stepped out and Theo rang. A sister opened the gate, said that Mme. van der Staff was at home and led the way across the courtyard. The convent belonged to the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady of Lourdes; and Aunt Thérèse boarded there, together with a few other pious old ladies. The sister showed them into a small parlour on the ground-floor and opened the shutters. On the mantelpiece stood a statue of the Blessed Virgin between two candelabra; there were a sofa and a few chairs in white loose covers.
"Is Reverend Mother at home, sister?" asked Theo.
"Yes, monsieur."