That evening Gerdy said to Constance:
"Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic today. . . ."
But Constance refused to listen. She well knew that there was no love lost between Mathilde and the rest of them; and it always upset her that, on the one hand, Mathilde always remained a stranger and that, on the other, one of the children always had some remark to make about Mathilde. She, on the contrary was always glossing over Mathilde's shortcomings and nearly always took her side.
"Honestly, Auntie, Mathilde carried on like a lunatic this afternoon. . . ."
Gerdy was in a great state of excitement and she determined to tell her story. It was after dinner, tea had not yet been served and Mathilde was upstairs, putting the children to bed. The others in the room were Adeline, Emilie and Guy; Granny was sitting in her corner. And Constance refused to listen:
"You mustn't always be so intolerant . . . about Mathilde," said Constance, by way of reprimand.
"Intolerant? Intolerant?" echoed Gerdy, excitedly. "But you didn't see her, the insane way she behaved. . . . We were on the ice . . . and . . ." She lowered her voice to a whisper, though Granny was not likely to understand. "We were on the ice . . . and there were others: the Erzeeles from Utrecht and Johan Erzeele from the Hague, you know, the one who's in the grenadiers.
144
