"Isn't she coming?" asked Adolphine, with a sidelong glance at the door.
It was Sunday evening, at Mamma van Lowe's, and it was after half-past nine. It had been like that every Sunday evening since Constance returned from Nice: the sidelong, almost anxious look towards the door; the almost anxious question:
"Is she coming?"
"I shouldn't be surprised if she did to-night," said Floortje. "If so, she's coming late, so as not to stay long."
Mother and daughter were sitting at the bridge-table with Uncle Ruyvenaer and Jaap; and the cards fell slackly one upon the other, uninterestingly, with a dull flop; and Floortje gathered in the tricks mechanically, silently and greedily.
"What a frump Cateau looks to-night!" said Adolphine, with a furtive glance at the second card-table.
"Like a washerwoman in satin," said Floortje.
"I say," said Uncle Ruyvenaer, burning to say something spiteful: he was losing, couldn't get a hand, kept throwing his low cards, furiously, one after the other, on Floortje's fat trumps. "I say, it's high time Bertha interfered!"
"Why, what are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about? What everybody's talking about: that Marianne is running after Van der Welcke in the most barefaced fashion."
"Aunt Bertha had better be very careful, with such a rotten cad as Uncle van der Welcke," Floortje opined.
"I passed them the other evening on the Koninginnegracht," said Jaap.
"And what were they doing?"
"How were they walking?"
"They had hold of each other."
"How?"
"Well, he had his arm around her waist."
"Did you see it?"
"Did I see it? And he kept on spooning her all the time."
"And Bertha," said Adolphine, "who just acts as if she saw nothing . . . Good heavens, what a frump Cateau looks to-night! . . . She doesn't seem to be coming, does she?"
"No, she doesn't seem to be coming now."
"How does Mamma take it, her staying away?"
"Mamma seems to get on without her," answered Uncle Ruyvenaer.
"Mamma can't really be fond of her."
"Or else Granny would insist on her coming," said Floortje.
"It's much quieter, now that she's staying away."
"Well, I don't mind a bit of a kick-up," said Jaap.
"Have you had to-day's Dwarskijker, Jaap?"
"Yes, but they've stopped putting in anything about us."
"It's really a piece of cheek on her part, not to come any more on Sundays . . ."
"And to go rushing off to Nice . . ."
"And not even arrange to be back on New Year's Eve."
"Yes; and then we hear about 'longing for the family.'"
"And even on New Year's Eve . . ."
"She takes good care to keep away."
"Yes," said Adolphine sentimentally, "on New Year's Eve we ought all to be here."
"Just so," said Uncle Ruyvenaer. "I agree."
"Then, if you've had a quarrel . . ."
"You make it up again . . ."
"And start quarrelling again, with renewed courage, on the first of January," grinned Jaap.
"But—I've always said so—what Constance has not got is . . . a heart," Adolphine continued, pathetically.
"Do you know what I think?" said Floortje, sinking her voice.
"What?"
"That she encourages Marianne."
"What for?"
"Well, deliberately."
"But what for?"
"Why, to be free of her husband."
"Of Van der Welcke?"
"Yes."
"To get . . . rid of him?"
"Of course. He's young . . . and she's old," said Floortje, not sparing her mother, who was only four years younger than Constance.
"But do you believe . . .?" said Uncle, nodding his head.
"Oh, no, I don't say that!"
"But still . . ."
"I expect it's only just spooning . . . as Jaap says."
"I don't think!" said Jaap, with a knowing grin.
"Behave yourself, Jaap!" said Adolphine, angry because Floortje had used the word "old."
"Rats!" said Jaap, rudely, shrugging his shoulders, as much as to say that Mamma was an idiot.
"I'll eat my hat if it's only spooning."
They looked at one another: Uncle, Adolphine and Floortje.
"You mustn't speak like that," said Adolphine, in a tone of reprimand, "when you don't know . . ."
"And what does Floortje know and what do you know? And you are both just as bad as I am, with your insinuations. . . . Only, I say what you and Floortje think . . ."
He flung down his cards and left his seat, because he couldn't stand being treated like a little boy who didn't know things.
The three others went on talking about Marianne and Van der Welcke . . . because they saw. But they saw nothing of Brauws and Constance . . . and did not talk about them . . .
"Oh, dear!" whined Cateau. "What a frump Aunt Adolph-ine looks to-night!"
She was sitting at the bridge-table with Aunt Ruyvenaer, Toetie and Eduard van Raven and looked over her ample bust at each card as she played it, very carefully, putting it down with her fat, stumpy fingers, the incarnation of unctuous caution.
"To-night?" asked Eduard.
"Oh, so oft-en: such a frump!" declared Cateau, emphatically. "So dowd-y!"
"She's your husband's sister, after all," said Aunt Ruyvenaer, quietly.
"Yes, Aunt-ie, I know . . . But Ka-rel is al-ways a gen-tleman!"
"And Aunt Adolphine never," replied Van Raven, to provoke her.
There was no love lost between aunt and nephew; and Cateau said, meekly:
"Well, I'm not say-ing it to say any-thing un-kind about Adolph-ine . . . But, Van Ra-ven, how ill Emilie-tje's looking: so tired! Are you two all right to-gether?"
"Say, half right," said Van Raven, echoing her emphasis.
Toetie tittered behind her cards; and Auntie said:
"Ajo,[1] Edua-r-r-rd, you! . . . Attend to the game . . . Your lead!"
Cateau was no match for Van Raven at laconic repartee and so she preferred to go on talking about Constance and said:
"Is she nev-er com-ing to Mo-ther's Sun-days again? Ah, I ex-pect she's been fright-ened away!"
"By you?" asked Eduard, gleefully capturing Cateau's knave of trumps.
"No, by the old aunts. It was re-ally ve-ry tactless ... of the two old aunts . . . Isn't it aw-ful: about Mari-anne and Van der Wel-cke?"
Karel, Van Saetzema and Dijkerhof were playing three-handed bridge at the third table. They had begun in grim silence, each of them eager to play the dummy, and inwardly Karel thought his sister Adolphine dowdy, Van Saetzema thought his sister-in-law Cateau dowdy, while Dijkerhof thought both his aunts very dowdy, hardly presentable. All three, however, kept their thoughts locked up in the innermost recesses of their souls, so that outwardly they were playing very seriously, their eyes fixed greedily and attentively on the dummy's exposed cards. Suddenly, however, Karel said:
"I say . . ."
"Well?" asked Van Saetzema.
"Isn't it caddish of Van der Welcke?"
"What? Compromising Marianne?"
"Ah, those girls of Aunt Bertha's!" said Dijkerhof, with a grin.
"What do you mean?" asked his father-in-law.
"Well, Louise is in love with her brother Otto, Emilie with her brother Henri and now Marianne, by way of variety, goes falling in love with her uncle."
"They're crazy, all that Van Naghel lot," said Karel, who felt particularly fit and well that evening, puffing luxuriously after a substantial dinner. "I say, what about Constance? Isn't she coming any more?"
"It doesn't look like it."
"Isn't Aunt Constance coming any more?"
"No, it doesn't look like it."
"Father, it's my turn to take dummy."
"Yes, Saetzema, it's Dijkerhof's turn."
Father-in-law and son-in-law exchanged seats.
The old aunts were sitting in a corner near the door of the conservatory:
"Rine."
"Yes, Tine."
"She doesn't seem to be coming any more on Sundays."
"No, Tine, she doesn't come on Sundays now."
"A good thing too!" Tine yelled into Rine's ear.
Mamma van Lowe, smiling sadly, moved from table to table, with Dorine, asking the children if they wouldn't like something to drink.
- ↑ Malay: "Come on, now then."