"Yes," she said, nestling closer in his arms, feeling that she still had him, that she had not yet lost him. "Let us listen to the storm ... and see if we can hear anything ... in the wind...."
And they remained still, without speaking. The lamps were not lit; only the fire in the open hearth cast its dancing gleams and shadows on the walls. The wind tore on from very far away, out of mysterious cloud-laden skies. It shrieked round the house, rushed past the windows, howled in the chimney, spread its wide wings and flapped on through the clattering rain, leaving its howl like a trail in the air....
By the flickering firelight, playing upon their small souls, they listened attentively.... He smiled.... Her eyes were wide and staring....
FOOTNOTES:
[27] The title borne by the unmarried daughters of the Dutch noblemen.
CHAPTER XIX
The next day, a Sunday, Constance felt a strange longing for youth and laughter, for merry voices and sunny faces. Addie and his father had gone out early, trying the bicycles on the sodden roads; and she was so lonely, still obsessed by that unaccountable sense of depression, that she felt that she must have laughter around her, that she must watch the romping of children, or she would be perpetually bursting into tears. And she took advantage of a lull in the rain to go to Adeline's in the Bankastraat.
As she entered the house, it seemed to her that the sun was shining. Adeline was sitting downstairs in the living-room, with the children round her. Marie, the eldest girl, was just twelve. All the others followed her at regular intervals of age, like the steps of a staircase. Marie was a sort of little mother to the rest: she was a great help to Adeline with the three youngest, those with the ugly names, Jan, Piet and Klaasje. These were now six years, four and two; and they formed a little group within the big group, because Jan insisted on ruling over Klaasje and Piet, looking upon them as his vassals, imitating Papa's voice, playing at horses with Piet and Klaasje, both very docile, while Jan was the tyrant, trying to impart a roar to his shrill little cock-crow of a voice ... until Marietje had to come in between as a supreme referee, giving her decision in all sorts of difficult questions that arose out of the merest trifle.... Adèletje, ten and a half, was a delicate, ailing child, mostly sitting very quietly close to Mamma, hiding in her skirts: a puny little thing, a great anxiety to her mother; and Adeline was uneasy too about Klaasje, as the child remained very backward and dull: the uncles and aunts called it an idiot.... But a merry little couple were Gerdy and Constant, nine and eight years old, always together, adoring each other, good little flaxen-haired kiddies that they were: very babyish for their age, blending their resemblance to Papa and Mamma into one soft mixture of pink and white and gold, almost like a coloured picture, and seeming a couple of idyllic little figures by the side of the rough, sturdy elder brothers. For, while Jan already was turbulent and tyrannical, Alex and Guy were regular "nuts;" had become indifferent to Marietje's judicial decisions, no longer even submitted to Adeline's restraint and had lost all sense of awe except when the stairs creaked under Gerrit's heavy footstep or when he bellowed at them. Though even then they knew, secretly, with a knowing glance of mutual understanding, that Papa might raise his voice, but never raised his hand; that, when Mamma decreed a punishment, he would say something to her in French, so that the punishment became very slight. And this precocious worldly wisdom had turned them, in their little nursery world, into two intractable, cheeky, swanking young reprobates, putting on big boys' airs, striking terror into little Gerdy and Constant, who would run away together and hide and play at mothers and fathers behind the sofa standing aslant in the drawing-room, chuckling quietly when Mamma or Marietje looked for them and could not find them. But, however intractable, Alex and Guy were two handsome little fellows, with cheeky mouths, but gentle eyes, dark eyes, the Van Lowe eyes: not their hard, but their soft eyes; and, when they were impudent and troublesome, with lips stuck out cheekily, but with those eyes full of dark, soft gentleness, then Constance felt in love with them, spoilt them even more than Gerrit did, put up with everything from the rascals, even allowing the two great boys to hang all over her and ruffle her clothes and hair. This time too, they rushed at her the moment she came in; and Constance, glad to see them so radiant, glad that everything became bright around her, as though the sun were shining, flung open her arms; but Adeline cried:
"Alex! Guy! Take care: Auntie's good cloak!... Boys, do take care: Auntie's beautiful hat!"