One evening Cornélie made the acquaintance of the Dutch family beside whom the marchesa had first wished to place her at the table: Mrs. Van der Staal and her two daughters. They too were spending the whole winter in Rome: they had friends there and went out visiting. The conversation flowed smoothly; and mevrouw invited Cornélie to come and have a chat in her sitting-room. Next day she accompanied her new acquaintances to the Vatican and heard that mevrouw was expecting her son, who was coming to Rome from Florence to continue his archæological studies.
Cornélie was glad to meet at the hotel a Dutch element that was not repellant. She thought it pleasant to talk Dutch again and she confessed as much. In a day or two she had become intimate with Mrs. Van der Staal and the two girls; and on the evening when young Van der Staal arrived she opened her heart more than she had ever thought that she could do to strangers whom she had known for barely a few days.
They were sitting in the Van der Staals' sitting-room, Cornélie in a low chair by the blazing log-fire, for the evening was chilly. They had been talking about the Hague, about her divorce; and she was now speaking of Italy, of herself:
"I no longer see-anything," she confessed. "Rome has quite bewildered me. I can't distinguish a colour, an outline. I don't recognize people. They all seem to whirl round me. Sometimes I feel a need to sit alone for hours in my bird-cage upstairs, to recollect myself. This morning, in the Vatican, I don't know: I remember nothing. It is all grey and fuzzy around me. Then the people in the boarding-house: the same faces every day. I see them and yet I don't see them. I see ... I see Madame von Rothkirch and her daughter, I see the fair Urania ... and Rudyard ... and the little Englishwoman, Miss Taylor, who is always so tired with sight-seeing and who thinks everything most exquisite. But my memory is so bad that, when I am alone, I have to think to myself: Mrs. von Rothkirch is tall and stately, with the smile of the German Empress—she is rather like her—talking fast and yet with indifference, as though the words just fell indifferently from her lips...."
"You're a good observer," said Van der Staal.
"Oh, don't say that!" said Cornélie, almost vexed. "I see nothing and I can't remember. I receive no impressions. Everything around me is colourless. I really don't know why I have come abroad.... When I'm alone, I think of the people I meet. I know Madame von Rothkirch now and I know Else. Such a round merry face, with arched eyebrows, and always a joke or a witticism: I find it tiring sometimes, she makes me laugh so. Still, they are very nice. And the fair Urania. She tells me everything. She is as communicative ... as I am at this moment. And Rudyard: I see him before me too."
"Rudyard!" smiled mevrouw and the girls.
"What is he?" Cornélie asked, inquisitively. "He is so civil, he ordered my wine for me, he can always get one all sorts of cards."
"Don't you know what Rudyard is?" asked Mrs Van der Staal.
"No; and Mrs. von Rothkirch doesn't know either."