CHAPTER XVI.
My aunt Gretchen van Cloth is in Paris!
Well, why do you assume your facetious tone on reading that? I know you and can guess your thoughts.
After all, Barbassou is a pasha, is it still necessary to remind you of that?
Well, the other day my uncle informed me that he would take me home to dine with him. I repaired to the boulevard at the appointed hour and we started in his brougham for Passy. On the way he told me what it was necessary I should know. We reached a rather nice looking house in the Rue Raynouard, from which you can see the boats floating down the Seine. There is a railing and a little garden in front. On hearing our footsteps, a young lady whom I at once recognised, from the recollections of my childhood, hurried to the door.
"Kiss your aunt," my uncle said to me: and I did as I was told.
We then entered a modest little drawing-room, the commonplace aspect of which, reminding one of furnished apartments, was improved by its general neatness and by a few bunches of flowers displayed in sundry odd vases. Three youngsters, the smallest of whom was between three and four years old, were eating bread and butter there. My uncle saluted each of them with a hurried kiss, and then they ran off to their nurse.
My aunt Gretchen is just reaching her thirty-fourth birthday. She confesses to her age. If she did not come from Amsterdam she ought to have been born there. She has blossomed like a flower among the tulips, and she looks like a Rubens, in that painter's more sober style, as in the portrait of the Friesland woman, with the prim pink and white flesh of the healthful natures of the North. You realise that good blood flows quietly and temperately beneath the pleasantly plump charms of this worthy Dutchwoman, who claims only her due, but is desirous of getting it. And she does get it. She has luxuriant light chestnut hair, and a very attractive face with the smiling, placid, and even somewhat simple expression of a good housewife, who is as expert in bringing up her children as in making pastry and pineapple jam. Being of a gay and amiable disposition, she greeted her husband with the ordinary, hearty affection of a woman who has never been a widow. After bringing him his foxskin cap she established him in a comfortable arm-chair, and then mixed his absinthe for him. I guessed that the captain was returning to old habits, with the dignified composure which he displays in everything.
They began to talk in Dutch, and as I looked at them without understanding it, my uncle said to me: