stantial, but I consider it dowdy.
And, on the other hand, you oughtn't to buy such rubbishy,
shabby-genteel things as you do. And you haven't much notion of
arranging your house, either, have you? If you were capable of
understanding my taste, I wouldn't mind helping you to alter your
drawing-room. But you would have to begin by getting rid of those
horrible antimacassars and those china monkeys and dogs. Do; I wish you
would. And choose a quieter carpet.... Don't you find those dinners very
trying, Adolphine? I should say that Bertha is more at home in that sort
of thing, isn't she?... And so the Erkenbouts go to your dinners, do
they? I should have thought that Bruis, of the _Fonograaf_, was more in
your set. But I was forgetting: you haven't a set, really; you have a
bit of everything, an omnium gatherum.... Curious, isn't it, that none
of our friends of the old days--our little Court set, let me call
it--ever come to you nowadays? What's the reason?... Of course, you have
to make your house attractive, if you want to keep your
acquaintances.... I suppose you don't care really about seeing people.
It's such hard work for you.... You're more the good mother of your
children, though I consider your girls, at least Floortje and Caroline,
rather loud; and, as for your boys, you seem quite unable to teach them
any sort of manners.... Well, if I can be of any use to you, if you want
to alter that drawing-room of yours, you have only to say so and we will
fix a day...."

Adolphine had listened gasping, unable to believe her ears. Had
Constance gone mad? She stood up, shaking all over, while Constance,
with apparent composure, continued to fold her laces:

"You're a deceitful creature!" she hissed, furious, so deeply wounded in
every detail of her vanity that she could no longer control herself.

"Why?" asked Constance, calmly. "Perhaps I was, for months, with a view
to winning your affection; and that was why I spent myself in praises
admiring Floortje's trousseau. But now that I know that you love me so
well, now that we have had a good, sisterly talk, now that we have given
each other our advice and our opinion, I see no further need for being
deceitful and I too prefer to express my sisterly feelings with the
frankest sincerity."

"Do you mean to say you didn't like Floortje's trousseau?" asked
Adolphine, raging.

But Constance mastered her quivering nerves:

"Adolphine," she said, coldly, "please let us end this