“What a frump Cateau looks to-night!” said Adolphine, with a furtive glance at the second card-table.
“Like a washerwoman in satin,” said Floortje.
“I say,” said Uncle Ruyvenaer, burning to say something spiteful: he was losing, couldn’t get a hand, kept throwing his low cards, furiously, one after the other, on Floortje’s fat trumps. “I say, it’s high time Bertha interfered!”
“Why, what are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about? What everybody’s talking about: that Marianne is running after Van der Welcke in the most barefaced fashion.”
“Aunt Bertha had better be very careful, with such a rotten cad as Uncle van der Welcke,” Floortje opined.
“I passed them the other evening on the Koninginnegracht,” said Jaap.
“And what were they doing?”
“How were they walking?”
“They had hold of each other.”