As she went out, Constance heard the butler announcing:
“Mr. and Mrs. van den Heuvel Steyn.”
She gave a start; she knew the name: friends of De Staffelaer’s; Van den Heuvel Steyn had a post at Court. Suddenly, she saw herself, years ago, as a young girl, calling on those people with De Staffelaer. She had not seen them for years, had not heard of them for years.
She passed them and saw that they had become old, very old, those friends of De Staffelaer’s, two very old people. They looked at her too; and there was fury in their eyes, as though they were both surprised—that old lady and that old gentleman—to find Mrs. van der Welcke in any drawing-room which they entered, even though she were a hundred times the sister of the colonial secretary’s wife. Their eyes crossed like swords; and Constance passed them very haughtily, looking over their heads and pretending not to recognize them. She shivered in the hall. It was pouring with rain. The butler called her carriage.
“It will be difficult,” she thought, tired out with this one quarter-of-an-hour’s visit. “But it is for my son. I must go through with it. . . .”
