She lay on the bed, sobbing convulsively, without really remembering why.
The boy sat down by the window, near the console-table, and took up his book, a story of the Boer war. A movement of his arm sent the two cards over. He just glanced down at them, at those two pieces of paste-board formalism, let them lie on the carpet and went on reading....
CHAPTER VII
That evening, Constance played bridge, though her head was still very bad. At Mamma van Lowe's request, she had brought Addie with her; and he had joined his boy- and girl-cousins in their round games. Constance was playing with Bertha, Gerrit and Uncle Ruyvenaer.
"Constance," said Bertha, "you mustn't think me unkind for only coming once to see you—and when you were out too—but I am so busy. I have sent you your invitation to-day for the wedding-functions. You'll come, of course, won't you?"
Bertha was the eldest daughter, Mrs. van Naghel van Voorde; her husband was secretary for the colonies; in their house, Constance had at once felt something of her father's house, in the old days: a big family; a circle which took a faint colonial tinge from the presence of the great Indian officials home from Java. Van Naghel had made his career through the protection of his father-in-law, the late viceroy; and their set also just grazed the edge of the diplomatic world and, of course, included a number of the chief officials of the home government as well. Although Constance had been only once, as yet, to their house, in the midst of the bustle of rehearsals for the wedding-theatricals, she at once felt something congenial there, something that was familiar to her, something of her former home: an atmosphere of distinction, of importance, which she had not known for many years past, but to which she yet felt herself drawn through the innate, instinctive vanity which she imagined was dead in her.
Constance was happy, though she still had a headache. Uncle Ruyvenaer was fussy but gay, because he was winning, with Gerrit for his partner. Bertha and Constance, their thoughts both far from the cards, went on talking, played badly. Bertha was almost entirely grey, greyer even than Mamma van Lowe. She had a rather ceremonious face and resembled her father: she had his hard, stiff features, his hard, dark eyes, his thin lips. Her eyes were always blinking, as though she had a difficulty in seeing. And in her manner of talking there was something abstracted, as though she were always thinking of something else. She was well-dressed, simply, in good taste.
"I think it so nice that your house is a sort of replica of our old house, when we were children," said Constance.
"Yes," said Bertha. "What are trumps?"