in ten days' time."

"Is there nothing we can do?"

"What do you want to do?" Paul asked, changing his tone, harshly.
"Surely you wouldn't sue the cad for libel?"

"No, no!" she said, startled and terrified.

"Well, what then? Keep quiet, don't read it don't upset yourself about
it...."

But Van der Welcke came up to them. He was purple, there was no
restraining him:

"I'm going to the fellow...."

"For God's sake, Van der Welcke!"

Uncle Ruyvenaer joined them:

"What are you doing in here? Oh, yes, that rag! It's disgraceful, it's
disgraceful!"

"I want to read it!" cried Constance.

"No!" they all three exclaimed. "Don't read it!"

"Don't let Mamma notice!" Uncle Ruyvenaer warned them.

And he went away, full of suppressed excitement.

But they remained in the boudoir. The portrait looked down upon them.

"Oh, my God!" Constance began sobbing; and she looked up at the
portrait. "Papa, Papa! Oh, my God!"

"Hush, Constance!"

"Let me read it!"

"No."

Adolphine appeared in the doorway. She said nothing, but realized what
they were talking about and turned away. And they heard Adolphine say
aloud, in a hard voice, to Uncle Ruyvenaer:

"It's their own fault!"

Van der Welcke flared up, no longer able to master himself. He spun
round to the door; Paul tried to hold him back, but it was too late;
and, on the threshold, with his face close to Adolphine's, he roared:

"Why is it my own fault?"

"Why?" asked Adolphine, furiously, remembering the lofty tone which he
had adopted to her after the quarrel of the two boys. "Why? You should
have remained in Brussels!"

"Adolphine!" cried Van der Welcke, purple in the face, seething,
roaring, with every nerve quivering. "You're a woman and an ill-mannered
woman; and so you can allow yourself to say anything you please to a
man. But, if your husband shares your opinion that I ought to have
remained in Brussels, he's only got to tell me so, in your name or in
his own! Then I'll send him my seconds!"

Van Saetzema came up at that moment.

"Then I'll send you my seconds!" Van der Welcke repeated, blazing.

"For God's sake, don't, my dear fellow!" cried Van Saetzema, frightened
to death.

And Adolphine began to clasp her hands together; she too was frightened
and took refuge in a feeble exhibition of wounded vanity:

"He says I'm ill-mannered! He says I'm ill-mannered! The hound! The cad!
I have to swallow everything! Every one says just what he lik