“Yes,” said Bertha, more cordially, as though waking from a dream. “He’s a charming boy, only a little stiff.”
“He’s still rather strange here.”
“He is very polite,” said Bertha, “but distant. He has very nice manners, but, when he says, ‘How d’ye do, Aunt?’ it sounds as if he were talking to a stranger.”
“Oh, Bertha, he is meeting such a lot of new uncles and aunts all at once!”
“He is a very nice boy. A handsome little fellow. Is he like his father?”
“Yes,” said Constance, grudgingly.
She felt again that the past had cropped up once more. She felt that Bertha was thinking that Van der Welcke was a very good-looking man—she had seen his portrait at Mamma’s—and that was why Constance had fallen in love with him.
But Gerrit laughed:
“Why do you say that in such a funny way, Sissy?”
“Did I?”
“One would think that you did not approve of your son’s taking after his father!”
Constance was grateful: Gerrit was so easy, so natural; and she laughed:
“What nonsense!”
“Do you think I can’t hear? ‘Is he like his father?’ ‘Ye-e-es!’ . . .”
Of a sudden, she became very sincere, with Gerrit:
“Did I speak like that? Yes, it’s silly of me, but
