beautiful old colouring, the table was so carefully laid, the flowers so tastefully arranged, with all the grace of a woman’s hand, and the lunch was so exquisite and dainty that Constance, amazed, had paid him a compliment. He half-filled an antique glass with champagne and drank to welcome her to Holland. There was about him, about his surroundings, about his manner, something refined and something timid, something feminine and something shy, something lovable and yet something reserved, as though he were afraid of wounding himself or another. He had obviously devised this reception in order to give pleasure to Constance. The conversation flagged: Ernst never completed his sentences; and his eyes were always wandering round the room. . . . After lunch, he was a little more communicative and he then asked her if she had ever thought on the grace and symbolism of a vase. She listened with interest, while she saw something in Van der Welcke’s glance as though he thought that Ernst was mad; and Addie listened very seriously, full of tense and silent astonishment. A vase, Ernst said, was like a soul—and he took in his hand a slender Satsuma vase of ivory-tinted porcelain, with the elegant arabesques waving delicately as a woman’s hair—it was like a soul. For Ernst there were sad and merry vases, proud and humble vases; there were lovelorn vases and vases of passion; there were vases of desire; and there were dead vases, which only came to life again when he put a flower in them. He said all this very seriously, without a smile and also
