But Gerrit would shake his head: no, that was romping, what his boys did, but the other thing was playing, real playing. Until Constance laughingly asked him to talk of something else than her bare feet. And then the conversation took a more ordinary turn; and it was as if both Gerrit and Constance felt that, although they liked each other, they had not yet found each other. And in this there was a very gentle melancholy that could hardly be formulated.
Constance did not see much of Ernst. She and Van der Welcke and Addie had once lunched with him at his rooms and he had been a most amiable host: he showed her the old family-papers, which, after Papa’s death, he had asked leave to keep, because he took most interest in them and they would be in good hands. He would leave them to Gerrit’s eldest son: Gerrit was the only one of the four brothers who, so far, had provided heirs. He showed her his old china and called her attention to the different marks that were signs of its value. Next, he spread out an old piece of brocade, embroidered with seed-pearls, and said very seriously that it was a stomacher from a dress of Queen Elizabeth’s. When Constance laughed and ventured to express a doubt, he became rather grave and almost angry, but graciously changed the conversation, as one does, a little condescendingly, with people who have said something stupid, who have not the same culture as ourselves.
When they sat down to lunch in his room with its
