"How softly they are talking and how confidential it all is!" she thought.
And, when Marietje lifted her head a little, as with the movement of a lily on its slender stem, Mathilde saw her smiling, saw her eyes gleaming softly, saw the words taking birth as it were smiling on her lips; and it seemed as though those words added a touch of colour to the pale lips and a blush to the pale cheeks. . . .
"How very much better she looks than when she came!" thought Mathilde, though she wanted to call out to Addie and tell him to let go Marietje's hand. "They are about the same age," she thought. "I am much younger than she is."
And yet Marietje, though twenty-six, had a certain youthfulness, as of a very young girl; and Mathilde could not get rid of the thought:
"They are—very nearly—the same age. It's ridiculous: a young doctor like Addie . . . with a young woman, a young girl like her. It's ridiculous. . . . Why is he wasting his time on her now?"
She now saw the smile fade from Marietje's lips, saw the girl, on the contrary, look very serious, tell a long and serious story:
"What can she be telling him?" thought Mathilde.
And she saw their faces come nearer to each other: it was as though Addie were reassuring Marietje, explaining things; and now, now he laid his hand on Marietje's head and she . . . she lay back on the sofa.
"It's absurd," thought Mathilde, "this hypnotizing . . . and that they should be alone together for so long."
Soon the hypnotism took effect. Marietje fell asleep and Addie quietly left the room. Mathilde
