but she thought for just one moment—a ghost of a thought—of Gerrit, of Buitenzorg, how they two, the little brother and sister, used to play in the river. . . . It was as if it had not been she, that little girl with the red flowers, as if it had been another little girl. . . . Never lived. . . . But what ought she to have done to feel that she had lived, now that she was growing old? Vanity, balls, her marriage, Rome, her love-affair, the scandal: was that living? Or was it all a mistake, mistake upon mistake, fuss and excitement about nothing? . . . Now, now it was over. Existence was becoming placid, less bitter, more kindly; but, still, she felt it, she had never lived. . . .
But she did not know what she ought to have done to make her now feel that she had lived; and she let the strange feeling be lulled to rest in the soft melancholy that filled her, because of this gentle kindliness that had come now, with the years, the grey haze of years. She sighed the strange thought away and she thought that it had to happen and that it could not have been otherwise and that even so she would never have known anything different. . . . Never lived. . . . But, then, had hundreds of men and women around her ever lived? . . . And she now shook herself free of this strange mood; and, laughing softly, happy in spite of her melancholy, she saw that the table was laid and asked the two mothers to come in to lunch.
Was it the grey haze of years then? . . . Was
