father and mother. For Van der Welcke at once took up the Nieuwe Rotterdammer and buried himself in its wide pages, in his corner.
“Oh, so you’ve come to sit by me at last!” she whispered.
“Mummy, don’t be so jealous: do you want me to chop myself in two?”
He talked to her, amused her. She always admired the way in which he talked, prettily, sensibly and divertingly, with a sort of talent for small-talk. Very likely he had acquired it because, without him, his father and mother would have been silent, when they were not quarrelling. He talked of a couple of houses which they had seen yesterday; he talked of the landscape, said it made him feel a Dutch boy at once—wasn’t it funny?—and kept his mother amused like a gallant little cavalier. And yet he had nothing of a dandy about him: a broad, short, firmly-built little man, in a coloured shirt, a blue great-coat and knickerbockers. He wore a soft felt hat, shaped like a Boer hat. She didn’t like that hat, but he insisted on having one. But, even with that hat, how handsome he was! Oh, what a good-looking boy he was! His frank, blue eyes, a little hard and grave; his fresh-coloured, firm cheeks, with those refined, clear-cut features, Henri’s features; his small mouth, which she loved; his square shoulders; his pretty, knickerbockered legs, with the square knees and the slender, rounded calves. Her child, her child: he was her all in all! He was the
