The men remained behind to smoke; Constance went to the drawing-room with Adeline and Marianne.
"You're looking so happy to-night, Aunt Constance," said Marianne. "Don't you think so, Aunt Adeline? Tell me why."
The girl herself looked happy, radiant as though with visible rays, a great light flashing from her sparkling eyes.
"Yes, Auntie's looking very well," said the simple little fair-haired woman.
"That's because I think it so nice to have all of you with me."
Marianne knelt down beside her, in her caressing way:
"She is so nice, isn't she, Aunt Adeline? I say, Aunt Adeline, isn't she a darling? So nice, so jolly, so homy. I adore Aunt Constance these days."
And she embraced Constance impetuously.
"Yes, Constance," said Adeline, "I'm very fond of you too."
And she took her sister-in-law's hand. She was a very gentle, simple, fair-haired little woman, the quiet, obedient little wife of her big, noisy Gerrit; and the family thought her insignificant and boring. Because Constance had at once sought her affection and valued her affection, she had, after her first surprise, grown very fond of Constance. She never went out in the evening, because of the children, except when Constance invited her. And she sat there, happy to be with Constance, with her gentle smile on her round, fair, motherly little face, pleasant and comfortable with her matronly little figure, now too plump for prettiness.
The men joined them; and, when Constance saw Brauws come in with the others, she thought that he looked strange, pale under the rough bronze of his cheeks. His deep, grey eyes seemed to lose themselves in their own sombre depths; and for the first time she examined his features in detail: they were somewhat irregular in outline, with the short-cropped hair; his nose was large and straight and the heavy eyebrows arched sombrely over the sombre eyes; his temples were broad and level; his cheekbones wide; and all that part of his face was energetic, intelligent, rough and sombre, a little Gothic and barbarian, but yet curiously ascetic, with the asceticism of the thinker. But the mouth might have belonged to quite another face: almost weak, more finely and purely drawn than any of his other features; the lips fresh, without any heavy sensuality; the white teeth seemed to hold a laughing threat as though they would bite: a threat that gave him the look of a beast of prey. And yet that mouth, the moustache and the chin had something more delicate about them, as though they belonged to another face; his voice was gentle; and his laugh, which every now and then burst out naturally and clearly, was charming, had a note of kindliness, which softened all that was rough and threatening into something surprisingly lovable. In his vigorous, broad, powerful movements he had retained an almost unceremonious freedom, which most certainly remained to him from his workman years: an indifference to the chair in which he sat, to the mantelpiece against which he leant; an indifference which seemed a strong and virile, easy and natural grace in the man of culture whose hands had laboured: something original and almost impulsive, which, when it did not charm, was bound to appear antipathetic, rude and rough to any one who was expecting the manners prescribed by social convention for a gentleman in a drawing-room. Constance was sometimes surprised that she, of all women, was not offended by this unceremonious freedom, that she was even attracted by it; but a nervous girl like Marianne—herself a delicate, fragile little doll of boudoir culture—would tingle to her finger-tips with irritation at that impulsive naturalness, which was too spacious for her among the furniture of Aunt Constance' drawing-room. And a sort of uncontrollable resentment surged through her when Brauws came to where she sat and said:
"Do you always . . . take such an interest in evolution, freule?"
She looked up at him quickly. He was bending forward a little, in a protecting and almost mocking attitude; and she saw only the barbaric, Teutonic part of his head and the beast-of-prey threat of his handsome teeth. She hated it all, because it was very strong and as it were hostile to her caste. She answered, with cool irony:
"No, Mr. Brauws, only in your case."
"And to what do I owe the honour?" asked Brauws.
"It's only natural. You were not like everybody . . . once. Now that I am meeting you just as I meet everybody, it interests me to know how it came about."
"From weakness, you think? Is that your secret idea?"
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps you are right. And, if it were so, would you despise me?"
The conversation was getting on her nerves. She tried to evade it:
"You may be weak, you may be strong," she said, irritably. "I don't know . . . and . . . it doesn't interest me so very much."
"It did just now."
Again she looked up quickly, with the quick, nervous grace of all her movements, and it flashed upon her that he was very angry with her, very hostile towards her.
"Aunt Constance!" she called. "Do come and help me. Mr. Brauws isn't at all nice."
Constance came up.
"He's not nice, your friend," Marianne went on, like a spoilt child, a little frightened. "He wants . . . he absolutely insists on quarrelling with me. Do take my part!"
And she suddenly flitted away to another chair and, bending behind her fan to Van der Welcke:
"That Brauws man is a most disagreeable person. Why can't he let me alone?"
She felt safe with him, this man of her own class, who joined hands with her own selfish, happiness-craving youth—for he was young—a small soul, like hers. Her small soul hung on his eyes; and she felt that she loved him. As long as she did not think about it and abandoned herself to her overflowing happiness, she remained happy, full of radiance; it was only at home that it cost her tears and bitter agony.
"You're surely not angry with my little niece?" asked Constance.
He was still pale, under the rough bronze of his cheeks.
"Yes," he said, sombrely.
"Why?" she asked, almost beseechingly. "She is a child!"
"No, she is not merely a child. She represents to me . . ."
"What? . . ."
"All of you!" he said, roughly, with a wave of his hand.
"Whom do you mean?"
"Her caste, to which you yourself belong. What am I here for? Tell me what I am here for. A single word from that delicate, lily-white child, who hates me, has made me ask myself, what am I here for, among all of you? I'm out of place here."
"No. You are our friend, Henri's friend."
"And yours?"
"And mine."
"Already?"
"Already. So don't think that you are out of place here."
"You also are a woman . . . of your caste," he said, gloomily.
"Can I help that?" she asked, half laughing.
"No. But why friendship? Our ideas remain poles apart."
"Ideas? I have none. I have never thought."
"Never thought?"
"No."
"You are a woman: you have only felt."
"Not that either."
"Not felt? But then what have you done?"
"I do not believe that I have lived."
"Not ever?"
"No, not ever."
"How do you know that now?"
"I am beginning to feel it now, by degrees. No doubt because I am getting old now."
"You are not old."
"I am old."
"And thinking: are you also beginning to think?"
"No, not yet."
"But, by the way you speak of yourself, you are quite young!"
"Don't be angry with that child!" she entreated, turning the conversation. "She is a nice girl, I am very fond of her . . . but she sometimes says things . . ."
"Do you like her?"
"Yes."
"I don't. I could almost say, I hate her as she hates me."
"Why?" she asked, in a frightened voice.
"You don't know her. You can't hate her."
"I am different from other people, am I not, mevrouw? I say different things and I say them differently. You know it, you knew it before I entered your house!" he said, almost fiercely.
"What do you mean?"
"I want to say something to you."
"What is it?"
"That child . . . that delicate, that lily-white child . . . is . . ."
"What?"
"The danger to your domestic happiness."
She gave a violent start:
"What do you mean?"
"She's in love with Hans."
"Hush!" she whispered, trembling, and laid her hand on his hand. "Hush!"
"She is in love with Hans."
"How do you know?"
"I see it . . . It radiates from their whole being . . ."
They both of them looked at Van der Welcke and Marianne. The two were whispering together with a glance and a smile, half-hidden behind a fan, while Paul, Gerrit and Van Vreeswijck were in the midst of an eager discussion and Addie gallantly entertaining Aunt Adeline, who was smiling gently.
"Please hush!" Constance entreated again, very pale. "I know she's in love with him."
"You know it?"
"Yes."
"Has she told you?"
"No. But I see it radiating out of her, as you see it. But she is no danger . . . to my domestic happiness. That happiness lies in my son, not in my husband."
"I like Hans," he said, almost reproachfully. "I have always liked him, perhaps just because he was always a child—and I already a man—when we were boys. He is still a child. He also . . . loves her. You see, I say different things from other people, because I don't know how to talk . . ."
"I know," she whispered, "that he loves her."
"You know?"
"Yes."
"Has he told you?"
"No. But I see it radiating out of him as I do out of her."
"So do I."
"Hush, please hush!"
"What's the use of hushing? Everybody sees it."
"No, not everybody."
"If we see it, everybody sees it."
"No."
"I say yes. I know that your brothers see it."
"No . . . Please, please . . . don't speak of it, don't speak of it, don't speak of it!"
"She is happy!"
"She must be suffering as well."
"But she gives herself up to her happiness. She is young, she does not reflect . . . any more than Hans does. I am sorry . . . for your sake, mevrouw."
"It is no sorrow to me for my own sake . . . I am sorry . . . for hers. Don't be angry with the child! Who knows what she suffers! Don't be angry because she . . . annoyed you at dinner, with her questions."
"One can't control one's likes . . . or one's dislikes."
"No. But I do like the girl . . . and I want you to try, as our friend, not to hate her . . . How seriously we're talking! I can't talk like that: I'm not used to it. I confess to you honestly, I'm getting frightened . . ."
"Of me? . . ."
"You're too big . . . to hate a child like that."
"I'm not big at all . . . I am very human. I sometimes feel very small. But you are right: to hate that child, for a single word which she said, for a touch of hostility which I felt in her, is very small. Thanks for the rebuke. I won't hate her, I promise you."
At first, the sombre austerity of his frown and his expression had almost terrified her. She now saw his lips laugh and his face light up.
"I'm going to apologize."
"No, don't do that."
"Yes, I will."
He went to Marianne; and Constance heard him say:
"Freule, I want to make friends."
She did not catch what Marianne answered, but she heard the little bells of Marianne's laughter and saw her put out her hand to Brauws. It was a reconciliation; and yet she felt that the hostility continued to exist, irreconcilably, like a hostility that was too deep-seated, going down to the fundamental antagonism of caste, even though this was innate in her and cultivated in him . . .
"And why," she thought, "do not I feel that hostility? . . ."