fourteen. He was broad; and his voice was so curiously deep sometimes, was changing; but he remained small for his age. The pink childishness of his skin was becoming downy with a sort of blond velvet bloom; and that blond velvet was more clearly defined above his upper lip. But he was still a child in the innocent freshness which, despite his seriousness, wafted from all his being like a perfume.
“I’m going to Driebergen for a week with Papa,” he said to Paul, to Gerrit, to Adeline. “Will you take pity on Mamma, Uncle, while I’m away? Will you, Auntie?”
They promised, smiling. Constance remained calm and peaceful. After those gently happy moods there had come to her, since Addie’s quarrel with Jaap about the nickname and what had happened after the quarrel, a nameless depression that silently gnawed at her heart. She did not speak about it, did not mention it to Addie, nor to Gerrit, nor to Paul. She entombed it in the depth of herself.
Father and son went away; and the grandparents thought that the little boy had grown. The grandmother feared that the children of the villa close by would be too childish, after all, for Adiaan to play with. She said this with an air of disappointment, but also of astonishment and admiration; and, although Henri said that Addie could play very nicely with his Uncle Gerrit’s fair-haired little tribe, even if he was a little paternal with them, yet the old woman sent no message to the villa.
It was beautiful at Driebergen and Zeist; and Van
