“Yes,” reflected Constance. “A big family like ours necessarily has all sorts of sections. . . .”
“And that is why Mamma is so devoted to her ‘family-group,’ in which all the different elements meet.”
“Sometimes we don’t see one another for weeks and months at a time, except on those Sunday evenings. . . .”
“And tell me: Karel and Cateau. . . .”
“Ka-rel and Ca-teau,” said Gerrit, mimicking Cateau, “live ve-ry com-fortably and have ve-ry nice little din-ners all by their lit-tle selves, don’t they, Adel-ine?”
They laughed.
“I was always fond of Karel,” said Constance. “Of Karel and you, Gerrit. . . . Do you remember, in the river, behind the Palace at Buitenzorg. . . .”
He looked at her long, seeking their childish past in her eyes:
“Yes, you were a pretty child then. You used to act all sorts of fairy-tales with us, among those great, spreading leaves: stories of a princess and fairies and knights and I don’t know what. You were a darling of a child: such a dainty, pale little elf, in your white cotton baadjet[1]; and your brothers were in love with you. . . . But two years later, when I was a boy of sixteen and you fifteen, you suddenly became a stuck-up girl, in a long ball-dress, and you refused
- ↑ A diminutive of kabaai, a native jacket with sleeves.
