"No, thank you," she said, excitedly. "I'm going to Constance; to Adolphine ... and then ... then I shall go home to bed."
She had opened the door and, in another moment, she was gone. Gerrit saw Adeline weeping, wringing her hands in terror:
"Oh, Gerrit!"
"Come, come, I don't expect it's so very bad. Ernst has always been queer."
"I shall go to Mamma, Gerrit."
"Yes, darling, but don't make her nervous. Tell her that I'm on my way to Ernst and that I don't believe he's so bad as all that. Dorine always exaggerates and she hasn't told us what Ernst is like.... There, good-bye, darling, and don't cry. Ernst has always been queer."
He flung his great-coat over his shoulders, for the weather was like November, cold and wet. Outside, the pelting rain beat against his face; and he saw Dorine ahead of him, wobbling down the street under her umbrella, with that angry, straddling walk of hers. She turned out of the Bankastraat on the left, into the Kerkhoflaan, on her way to Constance. He took the tram and, in spite of the rain, stood on the platform, with his military great-coat flapping round his burly figure, because he was stifling, as with a painful congestion, and felt his veins, surfeited with blood, hammering at his temples:
"That confounded champagne last night!" he thought. "I don't feel clear in my head.... I'd better go to Paul first.... Yes, I'd better go to Paul first.... Or ... or shall I go straight to Ernst?..."
He did not know what to decide and yet he had to make up his mind while his tram was going along the Dennenweg, for Ernst lived in the Nieuwe Uitleg. But, because he did not know, he remained on the tram, on the platform, with his back bent under the pelting rain; and it was not until he reached the Houtstraat that he jumped down, his sword clanking between his legs.
Paul lived in rooms above a hosier's shop. Gerrit found his brother still in bed: