“And to Ernst and Paul: I’ve been to all of them!” said Dorine, triumphantly. “And they’ve all promised to come.”
“Dorine, would you mind putting your umbrella outside? It’s so wet.”
Dorine put her umbrella in the passage outside the door and she now also let fall her skirt, the hem of which showed an edge of wet mud at which her brother kept staring as though hypnotized.
“And what did Bertha say?” he asked, pretending to be interested, but giving all his attention to the wet hem.
“Well, Bertha was very nice! I must say, Bertha was very nice!” said Dorine; and the tears, always so ready with her, came into her dark eyes. “She was very busy with the girls, drawing up the lists of invitations for Emilie’s wedding; and to-morrow they have one of their official dinners. But she said at once that, if Mamma wished it, we must all of us obey her wish and go to Mamma’s to-night to meet Constance. And Van Naghel, who came in for a moment, said so too. Bertha never agreed with Mamma, about encouraging Constance to come back to Holland; but, now that things had gone as far as they had, she said she would look upon Constance as a sister again, quite as a sister.”
“And what did Van Naghel say?” asked Karel van Lowe.
Karel was not really interested in what his brother-in-law, Van Naghel van Voorde, the colonial secretary, had said, but he had a methodical mind and,
