e him."

There was a knock at the door; and Henri put his head into the room:

"May I come in, Mamma?"

"Yes, what is it? Here's Aunt Constance."

"How are you, Aunt? I came to see how you are, Mamma."

The undergraduate was a tall boy of just twenty, with a pale, gentle
face and dressed with the ultra-smartness of a youth who is "in the
swim" at Leiden.

"Pretty well, my boy."

"I shall go back to Leiden to-morrow, Mamma."

"Oh?"

"Yes; and I shall probably not be home for some time. I mean to work
hard...."

"That's right."

"There's really nothing else to do but work. It's so slow here, Auntie,
now that Emilie's gone. Otto's all right, with Louise. She missed him
badly, while he was in India. Funny brothers and sisters, aren't we? So
exaggerated.... Well, Mamma, I'll say good-bye: I shall start the first
thing in the morning."

He said good-bye and went away pulling himself together, putting a good
face on his grief. Bertha began to weep softly.

A maid knocked at the door:

"Master van der Welcke, mevrouw."

"Addie's come to fetch me."

"Ask Master van der Welcke to come upstairs," said Bertha.

The boy came in. He remained near the door; in the half-dark room, he
stood small but erect, like a little man:

"I have come to fetch you, Mamma."

The two sisters looked at him, smiling. Bertha had it on her lips to say
that it was not right for Addie to go about the streets alone, but she
said nothing when the boy went up to his mother. He looked capable of
protecting her and himself against anything, though he was only
thirteen: against the dark night and against life that bore down so
heavily upon their small souls.

And a melancholy jealousy welled up in Bertha, while Constance was
kissing her good-bye:

"Don't be too bitter, Constance," she whispered, "and cherish, cherish
that boy of yours...."

CHAPTER XX

Constance, after this talk with Bertha, for days felt easier in her
mind, as though filled with an indefinable contentment that bid fair to
soothe and heal. Yes, she hoped that, gradually, she would win them all
back like that, all her near ones, whom she had lost for years. She saw
Mamma daily; and in these regular meetings between mother and child
there was the sweetness of finding each other after long years of almost
uninterrupted separation, a sweetness touched with a melancholy that
held no bitterness, a mingling of glad tears and smiles over the
happiness of it all.