"Oh, that boy!" said Van der Welcke, choking with merriment. "That boy!"
Constance uttered a deep sigh:
"Oh, Addie!" she said. "Mamma does and says such strange things, sometimes . . . but she doesn't mean them a bit. She's really glad to be back again, in her horrid country . . . and in her own home, her dear cosy home . . . and with her son, her darling boy!"
And, throwing her arm round his neck, she let her head fall on his breast and she sobbed, sobbed aloud, so that Truitje, entering the room, started, but then, accustomed to these perpetual, inevitable scenes, quietly went on laying the dessert-plates.
Van der Welcke fiddled with his knife.
"Why can't those two manage to get on better together?" thought Addie, sadly, while he comforted his mother and gently patted her shoulder . . .
