and she tried to talk cheerfully, while Van Saetzema coughed and complained, Caroline, bitter-mouthed and bitter-eyed, sat silent and Adolphine suddenly, with no attempt at preamble, observed to Constance:
"It's splendid air here, at Duinoord. . . . And the house is extraordinarily convenient . . ."
But her boasting voice choked as she completed her sentence more humbly:
"For the four of us."
"And where is Marietje?" asked Constance.
"Upstairs. She likes being upstairs, in her own little room. . . . "
"How is she to-day?"
"Just the same."
"May I see her?"
Adolphine rose with some hesitation. But she took Constance upstairs and opened a door:
"Marietje, here's Aunt Constance."
The girl rose from her chair in the grey light of the little room. She was tall and pale and, in that light, seemed suddenly to blossom up like a lily of sorrow, with the white head drooping at the neck, a little on one side. The very fair hair hung limply about the temples. It was heavy—her only attraction—and was wrung into a heavy knot which she wore low at her neck. The movements of her long arms, of her long, thin hands betrayed a listless, lingering anæmia; and her blouse hung in folds over her flat bosom. She was twenty-six, but looked younger; her lacklustre eyes were innocent of all passion, as though she were incapable of ever becoming a woman, as though her senses were dying away like some fading lily on its bending stalk.
"Good-morning, Auntie."
The little room was grey and white as a nun's cell, with the cloistered simplicity of a hermitage.
"I'm so glad to see you, Marietje."
