possibly have looked at each other gently, as now. . . . But the years had toned down the pain and the cruelty; and now it was possible and even agreeable for these two, mother and mother, to press each other’s hands and to exchange glances that asked for forgiveness.
“I also came to wish Henri many happy returns. He is sure to be back with Addie for lunch,” said Mrs. van Lowe.
But Constance returned; and now, in her own house, in her own drawing-room, she felt shy and quite different from what she felt when, offended and slighted, she had stood before Henri’s parents, at Driebergen, on that first and only visit. It was as though the combined presence of those two mothers made her like to a child that had done wrong. She felt as she had never felt before, felt small and childlike; and, when, as was often her habit, she went to sit close by Mrs. van Lowe, she took her mother’s hand and laid her head upon her mother’s breast and no longer controlled herself, but wept.
And Mrs. van Lowe again looked at Henri’s mother, as though she wished to say:
“If it can be, do not condemn my child too severely, even as I do not judge Henri too severely.”
And, because there now flowed through her soul a gentle happiness that had its source in contentment, Constance felt the poignancy of that moment of Henri’s home-coming when, tired after his ride, he walked in with Addie and found his mother there, his mother, who never left her house, sitting there
