that
how old age approached, like this, with these gentler years? She was
forty-two, she was not old, but, still, was old age approaching in this
way, so softly? And, while she asked herself this, in a passive,
melancholy mood, devoid of anger and passion, there hovered about her a
vague feeling that she would now grow old and that she had never
lived.... Never lived.... Never lived.... It hovered, that shadowy
discontent, in the midst of her gentle content.... Never lived.... She
did not know why, but she thought for just one moment--a ghost of a
thought--of Gerrit, of Buitenzorg, how they two, the little brother and
sister, used to play in the river.... It was as if it had not been she,
that little girl with the red flowers, as if it had been another little
girl.... Never lived.... But what ought she to have done to feel that
she had lived, now that she was growing old? Vanity, balls, her
marriage, Rome, her love-affair, the scandal: was that living? Or was it
all a mistake, mistake upon mistake, fuss and excitement about
nothing?... Now, now it was over. Existence was becoming placid, less
bitter, more kindly; but, still, she felt it, she had never lived....

But she did not know what she ought to have done to make her now feel
that she had lived; and she let the strange feeling be lulled to rest in
the soft melancholy that filled her, because of this gentle kindliness
that had come now, with the years, the grey haze of years. She sighed
the strange thought away and she thought that it had to happen and that
it could not have been otherwise and that even so she would never have
known anything different.... Never lived.... But, then, had hundreds of
men and women around her ever lived?... And she now shook herself free
of this strange mood; and, laughing softly, happy in spite of her
melancholy, she saw that the table was laid and asked the two mothers to
come in to lunch.

Was it the grey haze of years then?... Was she growing old and were
things becoming easier and more pleasant?... And had she never lived?...

"I do think it so very nice," she said, "to have both the Mammas
together at my table...."

CHAPTER XXVIII

In a small town like the Hague, the sudden appearance of Constance and
her husband, after many years, could not but be the occasion for an
interchange of gossip that was not easily silenced. The Van Lowe family
had connections in various sets--the aristocratic set, the upper
official worl