Guy carved the cold beef. All of them were silently wondering what Aunt Adolphine had come down for and their conversation sounded constrained; but Van der Welcke talked nonsense calmly with Guy and Gerdy. Adolphine, to keep the pot boiling, talked about the Hague: Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer and the girls had returned to India ever so long ago and were not coming back to Holland, now that Uncle and Aunt were older and preferred to live in Java; Louise was living with Otto and Frances; Frances always had something or other the matter with her; and Louise looked after the house and Hugo and Ottelientje, who were now thirteen and fourteen. Then there were Karel and Cateau, Ernst, Dorine, Paul. . . .
"We don't see much of one another nowadays," said Adolphine, sadly. "Ah, Mamma's Sunday evenings! They were very pleasant, say what you like. We didn't always agree, perhaps, but still . . ."
She started, became confused, pecked awkwardly at her food. She felt that the illusion of an united family—Mamma's great illusion in the old days—was quite dispelled; and, older, more melancholy and still bitter as she was, she felt sad about it, sad about something which possibly she had never valued but which she now missed. And she could not help feeling acute envy that Constance was living in so big a house and harbouring so many relations; and suddenly she asked, sharply:
"Your house is rather damp, isn't it, Van der Welcke?"
"Well, it's mostly on the ground-floor," said Van der Welcke, good-humouredly. "And we've had a lot of rain."
"One's feet get so chilly."
"Guy, give Auntie a footstool."
