"Ve-ry well . . . Yes, that's most unfor-tunate. Your Floor-tje, Phine, is bet-ter off than that with Dij-kerhof."
"At least, they're not thinking of getting divorced. I always look upon a divorce as a scandal. We've one divorce in the family as it is; and I consider that one too many."
Constance turned pale and felt that Adolphine was speaking loud on purpose, though it was behind her back . . . Dear Mamma noticed nothing! . . . She had been much upset on that one Sunday, that terrible evening, but had not really understood the truth: the terrible thing to her was merely that the old sisters had talked so loud and so spitefully about her poor Constance, like the cross-grained, spiteful old women that they were; but what happened besides she had really never quite known . . . And this, now that Constance was gradually drawing farther away from her brothers and sisters, suddenly struck her as rather fine. Whatever happened, they kept Mamma out of it as far as they could, in a general filial affection for Mamma, in a filial conspiracy to leave Mamma her happiness and her illusion about the family; and it seemed as if the brothers and sisters also impressed this on their children; it appeared that Adolphine even taught it to her loutish boys, for, to her sudden surprise, she saw Chris and Piet go up to Addie and ask him to join in their game. Addie refused, coldly; and now
