“Here you are, Dad.”
“Thank you, my boy. And how do you like your Dutch country, my lad? How do you like all the little cousins?”
“Oh, I haven’t seen much of them yet, but I’m going to Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Adeline’s on Thursday.”
“How many children have they?”
“Seven.”
“By Jove! Is Mamma well, Constance?”
“Yes, very well.”
“I’ve . . . I’ve had a letter from Papa,” he stammered. “They want us to come and see them soon at Driebergen. . . .”
He was at last bringing her the long-expected reconciliation. She looked at him without a word.
“Here’s the letter!” he said, handing it to her.
She read the letter. It was couched in the groping words of an old and old-fashioned man, who wrote seldom; an attempt at forgiving, at forgetting, at welcoming: laboured, but not insincere. The letter ended by saying that Henri’s parents hoped soon to see him and Constance and Addie at Driebergen.
Her heart beat:
“So they are condescending to take me into favour!” she thought, bitterly. “Why only now? Why only now? My boy is thirteen; and they have never asked to see their only grandson. They are hard people! Why only now? I don’t like them. . . .”
But all she said was:
