with a thin and sallow face, her breast shrunk within a painfully tight, dark-silk blouse; her dull, mud-coloured hair drawn tightly from her forehead into a knot at the back; very thin, with no hips, with not a single rounded line and with those dark eyes of the Van Lowes, which in her were bright and intelligent, but with an odd sort of silent reproach and secret discontent at the back of them, as though brooding under her glance. Withal she had retained something very young and girlish, something innocent and gay and lively. While pulling off her gloves, she spoke pleasantly to the servant, made a playful remark about the wet weather. She felt her hair, to see if it was smooth and drawn back properly, and tripped up the stairs with a swinging gait, her shoulders bobbing up and down, her legs wide apart. There was now something quite young and unconstrained in that gay liveliness of hers.
She found Mamma upstairs, in the double drawing-room, where Klaartje was lighting the gas:
“They’re all coming, Mamma!” Dorine blurted out.
Then, starting when she saw the servant, she whispered:
“I’ve been to all of them; first to Karel, then to Bertha, then to Adolphine; no, first to Gerrit . . .”
She became muddled, laughed, made Mamma sit down beside her and told her what all the brothers and sisters had said. The old woman’s face beamed with satisfaction. She kissed Dorine:
“You’re a dear girl, Dorinetje,” she said, with
