"What a frump Cateau looks to-night!" said Adolphine, with a furtive glance at the second card-table.

"Like a washerwoman in satin," said Floortje.

"I say," said Uncle Ruyvenaer, burning to say something spiteful: he was losing, couldn't get a hand, kept throwing his low cards, furiously, one after the other, on Floortje's fat trumps. "I say, it's high time Bertha interfered!"

"Why, what are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? What everybody's talking about: that Marianne is running after Van der Welcke in the most barefaced fashion."

"Aunt Bertha had better be very careful, with such a rotten cad as Uncle van der Welcke," Floortje opined.

"I pa.s.sed them the other evening on the Koninginnegracht," said Jaap.

"And what were they doing?"

"How were they walking?"

"They had hold of each other."

"How?"

"Well, he had his arm around her waist."

"Did you see it?"

"Did I see it? And he kept on spooning her all the time."

"And Bertha," said Adolphine, "who just acts as if she saw nothing.... Good heavens, what a frump Cateau looks to-night!... She doesn't seem to be coming, does she?"

"No, she doesn't seem to be coming now."

"How does Mamma take it, her staying away?"

"Mamma seems to get on without her," answered Uncle Ruyvenaer.

"Mamma can't really be fond of her."

"Or else Granny would insist on her coming," said Floortje.

"It's much quieter, now that she's staying away."

"Well, I don't mind a bit of a kick-up," said Jaap.

"Have you had to-day's Dwarskijker, Jaap?"

"Yes, but they've stopped putting in anything about us."

"It's really a piece of cheek on her part, not to come any more on Sundays...."

"And to go rushing off to Nice...."

"And not even arrange to be back on New Year's Eve."

"Yes; and then we hear about 'longing for the family.'"

"And even on New Year's Eve...."

"She takes good care to keep away."

"Yes," said Adolphine sentimentally, "on New Year's Eve we ought all to be here."

"Just so," said Uncle Ruyvenaer. "I agree."

"Then, if you've had a quarrel...."

"You make it up again...."

"And start quarrelling again, with renewed courage, on the first of January," grinned Jaap.

"But--I've always said so--what Constance has not got is ... a heart,"

Adolphine continued, pathetically.

"Do you know what I think?" said Floortje, sinking her voice.

"What?"

"That she encourages Marianne."

"What for?"

"Well, deliberately."

"But what for?"

"Why, to be free of her husband."

"Of Van der Welcke?"

"Yes."

"To get ... rid of him?"

"Of course. He's young ... and she's old," said Floortje, not sparing her mother, who was only four years younger than Constance.

"But do you believe...?" said Uncle, nodding his head.

"Oh, no, I don't say that!"

"But still...."