And their conversation again turned on the boy. Then she had to tell him about Brussels and even about Rome.
“It’s strange,” he said. “When you were in Brussels ... I was living at Schaerbeek.”
“And we never met.”
“No, never. And, when you and Hans went to the Riviera, I was there in the same year.”
“Did you come often to Monte Carlo?”
“Once or twice, at any rate. Attracted by just that vivid contrast between the atmosphere out there, where money has no value, and my own ideas. It was a sort of self-inflicted torture. And we never saw each other there.... And, when you were here, in the Hague, as a girl, I used often to come to the Hague and I even remember often passing your parents’ house, where your mother still lives, in the Alexanderstraat, and reading your name on the door: Van Lowe....”
“We were destined never to meet,” she said, trying to laugh softly; and in spite of herself her voice broke, as though sadly.
“No,” he said, quietly, “we were destined not to meet.”
“The fatality of meeting is sometimes very strange,” she said.
“There are thousands and millions, in our lives....”