Addie ran up the stairs to the platform just as the train from Paris steamed in. He hurried along, looking into the windows . . . There was Mamma, there was Mamma! And he flung himself on the handle, pulled open the door, helped Constance to alight.
"Ah!" he said. "There you are! There you are at last!"
She laughed, kissed him, her handsome, sturdy boy:
"My boy, how could I do so long without you?"
"Ah, so you see! You're surprised at it yourself! Come, make haste, I've got a cab. Give me your luggage-ticket."
He swept her along; and, in the cab, while they were waiting for the luggage:
"Tell me, Addie," she said, "is there really no money left?"
"Do you imagine that, when you go spending seven weeks at Nice, in a first-class hotel, there'll still be money?"
"I never thought of it like that," she said meekly.
He laughed, thought her tremendously amusing.
She laughed too, they both bubbled with mirth, Constance glad at seeing him, at finding him looking so well and in such good spirits.
"Mamma, you're hopeless!" he exclaimed.
"Did you really never think that there was no money left?"
"No," said Constance, humbly.
And they both started laughing again. He shook his head, considered her incorrigible:
"And I've got some bills too, for the things you bought when you went away."
"Oh, yes!" she said, remembering. "But they can wait."
"I told them that you were abroad and that they'd have to wait."
"Of course," said she.
And they arrived in the Kerkhoflaan in excellent spirits.
"Well, Truitje, have you looked after the master and Master Addie nicely?"
"I did the best I could, ma'am . . . But it's just as well you're back again . . ."
"Well, Constance?"
"Well, Henri?"
"Did you have a good time?"
"Yes."
"You're looking well."
"Thanks. . . . Oh, have you waited dinner for me?"
"Well, of course!"
"I'll go and wash my hands and I'll be down immediately."
"Mamma never thought for a moment . . . that there was no money left," said Addie.
"Nonsense!" said Van der Welcke.
But he seemed to consider it quite natural; and, when Constance came downstairs, he said, laughing:
"Didn't you think that there was no money left?"
Constance glanced up, imagining that he meant to make a scene. But he was smiling; and his question sounded good- humoured.
"No!" she said, as if it was only natural.
And now they all went into fits of laughter, Addie with his silent convulsions, which made him shake up and down painfully.
"Do laugh right out, boy!" said Van der Welcke, teasing him. "Do laugh right out, if you can."
They were very gay as they sat down to dinner.
"And just guess," said Constance, "whom I met in the hotel at Nice, whom I sat next to at the table d'hôte: the d'Azignys, from Rome . . . The first people I met, the d'Azignys. It's incredible how small the world is, how small, how small!"
He also remembered the d'Azignys: the French ambassador at Rome and his wife . . . fifteen years ago now . . . "Really?" he asked, greatly interested. "Were they all right?"
"Oh, quite," she said, "quite! I remembered them at once, but didn't bow. But d'Azigny was very polite; and, after a minute or two, he spoke to me, asked if he wasn't right in thinking I was the Baronne de Staffelaer. 'Baronne van der Welcke,' I replied. He flushed up and his wife nudged him, but after that they were very charming and amiable all the time I was at Nice. I saw a lot of them and, through their introduction, I went to a splendid ball at the Duc de Rivoli's. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wore a beautiful dress, I was in my element once more, I was a foreigner, everybody was very pleasant and I felt light-hearted again, quit of everything and everybody, and I thought to myself . . ."
"Well, what did you think?"
"Oh, if only we had never gone back to Holland! If, when Brussels became so dull, we had just moved to a town like Nice. It's delightful there. As a foreigner, you need have nothing to trouble about, you can do just as you like, know just whom you please. You feel so free, so free . . . And why, I thought, must Addie become and remain a Dutchman? He could just as well be a Frenchman . . . or a cosmopolitan. . . ."
"Thank you, Mamma: I don't feel like being a Frenchman, nor yet a cosmopolitan. And you'd better not say that to Uncle Gerrit, or you can look out for squalls."
"Addie, I've met with so many squalls in my dear Holland that I feel like blowing away myself, away from everybody . . ."
"Including your son?"
"No, my boy. I missed you. I thought of you every day. I am so glad to see you again. But I did think to myself that we should have done better never to come back to Holland."
"Yes," said Van der Welcke, thoughtfully.
"We could have lived at Nice, if we liked."
"Yes," Van der Welcke admitted, a little dubiously, "but you were longing for your family."
She clenched her little hand and struck the table with it:
"And you!" she cried. "Didn't you long for your parents, for your country?"
"But not so much as you did."
"And who thought it necessary for Addie? I didn't!" she exclaimed, in a shrill voice. "I didn't for a moment! It was you!"
"Oh, d," said Addie, almost breaking into an oath. "My dearest parents, for Heaven's sake don't begin quarrelling at once, for I assure the two of you that, if you do, I'll blow away and I'll go to Nice . . . money or no money!"
Van der Welcke and Constance gave one roar and Addie joined in the laugh.
"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 . . .