little. He works entirely to please himself. And he is a comfort, to both of us. He is a strange child. He is not a child.”
“And what is he going to be?”
“He will probably go into the diplomatic service.”
She spoke the words and saw, in a flash, before her eyes, Rome, De Staffelaer, all her vain past. And, in that half-darkened room, in that hour of absolute sincerity, she asked herself whether that career would spell happiness for her son.
“Will Van der Welcke like that? . . .”
“Yes, but Addie must decide for himself. We shall not force him.”
There was a knock at the door; and Henri put his head into the room:
“May I come in, Mamma?”
“Yes, what is it? Here’s Aunt Constance.”
“How are you, Aunt? I came to see how you are, Mamma.”
The undergraduate was a tall boy of just twenty, with a pale, gentle face and dressed with the ultra-smartness of a youth who is “in the swim” at Leiden.
“Pretty well, my boy.”
“I shall go back to Leiden to-morrow, Mamma.”
“Oh?”
“Yes; and I shall probably not be home for some time. I mean to work hard. . . .”
“That’s right.”
“There’s really nothing else to do but work. It’s
