"But this is most charming!" said Paul, to himself, for he could not tell his sister so yet, as she and Van der Welcke were talking to Van Vreeswijck. "This is most charming! A party of four, like this, in this pretty room. That's just what I like. Compare all that formality of Bertha's. Bertha never gives these intimate little dinners. This is just what I like at my age"—Paul was thirty-five—"no formality, but everything elegant and nicely-served and good.... Excellent hors d'oeuvres! Constance knows how to do things! Compare the friendly, but homely rumpsteak which I sometimes get at Gerrit and Adeline's; or Adolphine's harum-scarum dinners.... No, this is as it should be: a quiet, friendly little dinner and yet everything just right.... Van Vreeswijck's dinner-jacket looks very well on him; only I don't like the cut of his waistcoat: too high, I think, his waistcoat. Those are nice buttons of his. But he's wearing a ready-made black tie! How is it possible! Strange how you suddenly perceive an aberration like that in a man: a ready-made tie! Who on earth wears a ready-made tie nowadays! Still, he looks very well otherwise.... Nice soup, this velouté.... What a duck Constance looks! Would you ever think that she was a woman of two-and-forty! She's like Mamma: Mamma also has that softness, that distinction, that same smile; Mamma even has those dimples still, in the corners of her mouth.... No, none of my other sisters could have done that, pulled back the hangings herself with that pretty gesture and asked us so naturally to come in to dinner.... You'll see, Constance will make her house very cosy, even though they are not rich and though they won't go into society officially. These friendly little dinners are just the thing...."
He had to join in the conversation now, with Van Vreeswijck; and Van der Welcke, who was in a pleasant mood, let himself go in a burst of irrepressible frankness:
"Tell me, Vreeswijck, who is it that's been saying we wanted to be presented at Court?..."
Van Vreeswijck hesitated, thought it a dangerous subject of conversation. But Constance laughed gently:
"Yes," she said, seconding her husband, "there seems to be a rumour that we have that intention; and the intention never existed for a moment."
Van Vreeswijck breathed again, relieved:
"Oh, mevrouw, how do people ever get hold of their notions? One will suggest, 'I wonder if they mean to be presented?' The other catches only the last words and says, 'They mean to be presented!' And so the story gets about."
"I shouldn't care for it in the least," said Constance. "I have become so used, of late, to a quiet life that I should think it tiresome to be paying and receiving a lot of visits. I am glad to be at the Hague, because I am back among my family...."
"And the family is very glad too!" said Paul, with brotherly gallantry, and raised his glass.
She thanked him with her little laugh: