were standing behind the door, listening. When Constance, at such times, tried to persuade him to move to Driebergen, he shook his head obstinately, as though some part of him had grown fast to that room of his, as though he could not tear himself out of it; and his eyes would glance at his books and his china, as though to say that it was impossible to remove all that. And, because he was calm and no trouble and quiet in his behaviour, she let him alone, because this was what he preferred: to live within himself, among his hobbies, solitary, shy and eccentric. Five years ago, it was true, he had been ill again, had talked to himself for days on end, had wandered about in the Wood. Paul wrote to Constance and she had come over; but Ernst had soon grown quiet again, afraid no doubt that he would have to go back to Nunspiet, afraid of a change of residence, afraid of keepers, of nurses, of the things which he had never been able to forgive any of them, not even Constance. That was years ago, five years ago; and lately Constance and Addie too had never seen Ernst other than calm and peaceful, though a good deal of strange and silent brooding seemed to lurk behind the silent cunning of his dark, staring eyes. But then, months and months would again pass without their seeing him, without their hearing of him; they were all accustomed to his strangeness; and the months would drag past without the threatened crisis coming. No, nothing came, even though the man was strange, though he did talk to himself, though he was full of bottled-up grievances; and, when they saw him again after a lapse of months, they were struck by a certain artistic method in his rooms with their beautiful warm colouring, struck by some new arrangement of the furniture, by some new purchase; and he, as though conscious that he was on trial, would talk almost
