ly-pride among all of us; I thought that there was a mutual sympathy
among us great enough, even though there was an appearance of truth in
people's slanders, for that sympathy and pride to excuse and protect and
defend the one who was slandered. The things that can be said about me
are no secret. They are a matter of general knowledge; and I carry the
punishment for my sin about with me as a burden on my life. But I have
nothing more to reproach myself with than what is known as a fact. Don't
think that I am making light of it. I only say that that is all there
is. I should have thought that you would have known this, that you would
have believed this, even if I had never told you. Addie is Van der
Welcke's son as surely as I am Papa's daughter. What people like to
invent besides is no concern of mine. I can't even understand why they
care to invent at all, when I have already given them so much that is
true to discuss. But it was a great disappointment to me, Adolphine, to
find that those lies could be countenanced for a moment in your house."

Adolphine, seeing that her pumped-up tears were making no impression,
had time to recover herself while Constance was speaking. Inwardly
furious, but superficially calm, she now said, spitefully, in a tone of
sisterly reproof:

"You must have expected some disappointment on returning to the Hague?"

"Perhaps, but not this disappointment ... if you had had any affection
for me."

"Come, Constance, it's not as if I wasn't fond of you. But it might have
been better if you had not come back."

"It's a little late to speak of that now, Adolphine: I'm here and I mean
to stay. When I wrote to Mamma six months ago...."

"Mamma is a mother."

"I thought that you were a sister."

"I am not the only one."

"I hope that the others feel more affection for me and more indulgence
than you do."

"Bertha was against your coming. So was Karel."

"I thank you for telling me; but, as I said, it is too late now."

"Gerrit and the others don't count, because they don't see people.
Bertha and Karel and I have our family, our friends."

"And I compromise you in their eyes, do I?"

"Your coming here raked up a heap of things which had been long
forgotten. And I know as a fact that your father- and mother-in-law were
against it."

"You seem to know a great deal; and I am glad that you are so frank."

"I am always frank."

"And so irreproachable."

"I could never have done what you