Adolphine’s part, to like to see her child happy before another. . . .”
Paul spluttered with laughter:
“So you think that Floortje is happy as Luxury on the top of Marianne and that Marianne suffers badly underneath! Connie, how sentimental you are to-night and what silly things you say! . . . But you’re looking very nice. Come, let’s go and sit down here. Your hair is turning grey, but I have an idea that you leave it untouched for some coquettish reason, because it goes so well with your young features. It’s a very pretty shade of grey. It’s not old hair. But you’re young still, you know. And you’re looking nice, very nice. . . .”
“I believe you’re making fun of me. . . .”
“I love good-looking people; and one sees so few of them. Just glance round the room: all ugly people; one walks crooked, another has a stoop, this one’s bust sticks out for miles, that one has a fat stomach. I can’t stand parts of the body that bulge: it makes me sick to look at them. . . . Yes, to be accurate, nearly everybody’s ugly. Do you know, if you were to take all the heroines out of all the novels in the world, you’d just get one heap of pretty women. No novelist ever dares take an ugly, squinting, crooked or hump-backed heroine. If I were a rich man, I’d offer a prize for a hideous heroine. . . . Yes, look at Aunt Lot,” and he imitated Mrs. Ruyvenaer’s Indian accent, “glittering with diamonds; and her two hands patting her brown-
