their money; and even then they could very well have helped Aunt Adeline with the up-bringing of her children; and everyone would have thought it very handsome of them and no one would have thought that they were living or acting unreasonably or selfishly or inexplicably, whereas now! . . . Whereas now! . . . Locking themselves up in the dark haunted house, all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, all through the long, long winter, with nothing but sick people, nothing but mad people about them! . . .
Fortunately it had begun to freeze. It was as though this glorious ice had brought about a friendlier feeling: Gerdy was not so very horrid; Guy skated with Mathilde because she was a good, finished skater, fond of good, finished, unwearied skating; and the crisp crystal cold, after all the days of rain and storm, made everybody cheerful and indulgent. Oh, those skating-trips! First a short journey by train; and then along the waterways, endlessly, endlessly! And she was so grateful when Addie, one single morning, was able to escape going to all those sick, poor people, whom he had to visit daily—she hated the sight and the feel of him when he returned—and went with her, for half a day's skating! And she took possession of her husband, glad to have him with her, with crossed hands, swaying evenly and rhythmically with him, in the rhythm of hip to hip, in the swing of firmly-shod feet, while she cut through the broad blast of the wind with her swift, powerful movement, till her eyes and face shone and she was drunk with swallowing the ice-cold distance, shooting far ahead in canal-vistas between the snow-clad meadows, under the low-hanging skies, swept clean as with giant besoms of wind, while the horizons of skeleton trees dwindled and faded away, and the wind-mills, with
