waited a few minutes and also stole away, meeting no one on the stairs. . . .
What she had seen through the slit in the wallpaper was nothing; and yet . . . and yet she could not help constantly brooding over it. . . . She now also noticed, at lunch, that Marietje was much more cheerful, that her movements were much less languid, that she laughed with the other girls; and she noticed that, after lunch, she helped Adeletje with the plants in the conservatory, that she was beginning to join in the life of the others, that she no longer went straight back to her room as she used to do at first. . . . And constantly too, downstairs, in the conservatory, she was struck by an intimacy between Marietje and Addie. . . . Mathilde was quite sensible, though she was jealous of her husband; she was jealous of all his patients; she was quite sensible and thought:
"A certain affection between a young girl and a doctor, a young doctor, who obviously has a good influence upon her, as Addie has, is easy enough to understand."
And she wanted to go on thinking so sensibly, she, a woman of sound, normal sense, but it was difficult, very difficult. . . . For Addie went out and she at once saw Marietje's smile disappear, saw her happy vivacity sink as it were . . . and Marietje soon went upstairs, until she came down again with Aunt Constance and Adeletje to go for a walk, as they did every afternoon when the weather was not too bad. . . . Mathilde remained upstairs, played the piano, looked out upon the sad, misty road. . . . Oh, she loved her husband, she even loved him passionately and she was living here for his sake; but wasn't it awful, wasn't it awful? In Heaven's name wouldn't it be better just to move to a small house at the Hague . . . and accept the
