He heard her saying it without words, but he did not give in.
And, when they went to bed, he said:
"I shall write to Henri to-morrow."
He wrote to ask if Henri and Adriaan would come and spend a week at Driebergen, before Adriaan's holidays were over. Van der Welcke felt in the laboured words of that old man who was not used to writing that his father was implacable towards Constance. Constance felt it and so did Addie. And, when Addie, offended on his mother's behalf, said, angrily, that she was being left behind alone, she replied:
"It's better that you should go with Papa, my boy."
She thought it advisable for him, the grandson, the heir, not to provoke his grandfather. But she had never spent a week without him before:
"What can I do?" she thought. "He is growing bigger, older; I shall see less of him still as time goes on."
Yes, he had grown bigger, older; he was now fourteen. He was broad; and his voice was so curiously deep sometimes, was changing; but he remained small for his age. The pink childishness of his skin was becoming downy with a sort of blond velvet bloom; and that blond velvet was more clearly defined above his upper lip. But he was still a child in the innocent freshness which, despite his seriousness, wafted from all his being like a perfume.
"I'm going to Driebergen for a week with Papa," he said to Paul, to Gerrit, to Adeline. "Will you take pity on Mamma, Uncle, while I'm away? Will you, Auntie?"
They promised, smiling. Constance remained calm and peaceful. After those gently happy moods there had come to her, since Addie's quarrel with Jaap about the nickname and what had happened after the quarrel, a nameless depression that silently gnawed at her heart. She did not speak about it, did not mention it to Addie, nor to Gerrit, nor to Paul. She entombed it in the depth of herself.