"Shall we go and bicycle a bit, my boy?" asked Van der Welcke. "Or are you tired?"
"Yes, I'm tired."
"Remember, Addie," said Constance, coldly, "that we are going to Grandmamma's and that you have to change."
"Yes."
He got up, went upstairs, to his boy's room, not knowing what to say next, what to do with himself, where to sit, what book to take up; he remained standing, aimlessly, in the middle of the room, with that bottled-up sorrow of a whole afternoon lying heavy on his chest and lungs: that sorrow which he had dragged with Frans and the Hijdrechts to Scheveningen, quietly, without sobbing, amid that bustling crowd of Sunday visitors.
He stood there, aimlessly, dejected, when the door opened and Van der Welcke entered:
"Come, Addie, my boy, tell your father. What is it?"
"Papa," he began, yearning now, burning to know....
But he could not go on. It was his first sorrow and it was so heavy, so oppressively heavy.
"Come, my lad, what's the matter?"