father-in-law and mother-in-law, of every minute that Addie had to spare! Oh, it was just a hospital! Adeletje was always ailing; and now Marietje van Saetzema, really very seriously ill, had been added to the rest. Or wasn't it rather, with their exaggerated clinging to that family of semilunatics, a mad-house, now that, over and above doting Grandmamma and half-witted Klaasje, this Uncle Ernst, who was quite out of his mind, had appeared upon the scene? True, he did not live in the house, but he was there a great deal and would come in to meals unexpectedly, without a word of warning. She was frightened when she met him suddenly in the passages, always carrying on about the Delft jars; and then he didn't recognize her, didn't know who she was, what she was doing there, until he remembered: Addie's wife. Perhaps he only behaved like that from craftiness, from wickedness.
A haunted house, a sick-house, a mad-house: that's what it was; and this was where she had to spend her life, for Addie's suggestion, that they should live by themselves, economically, at the Hague, did not attract her: she had had enough of economy, she had not married him for economy! She had not married him for his money or for his title either: she had really and truly married him because she loved him, loved his quiet, charming, serious face, his eyes, his mouth, loved having him in her arms, because she loved his voice, loved, strange though it might seem, his rather elderly, restful manliness, calmness and strength suggested by that rather short, sturdy, blond frame. She had looked upon him with love, had felt love for him; and no one could blame her for being sensible and for not being prepared to marry him if he had been quite without money. Of course she thought it nice to have a title: well, there may have been a little
