and shambled and shuffled along. Every word spoken by the
one was an offence to the other: they could not endure each other's
going and coming. Latterly, they could not speak but their speech caused
a quarrel. Between them stood the child, still the child of their love.
But the Child did not unite them, was a cause of jealousy to both. They
grudged each other their offspring. He could not bear to see his son in
her arms; she could not bear to see her boy on his knee. He turned pale
when she kissed the boy; she cried with envy when he took him for a
walk. Yet they did not think of a separation, deeming the thought
ridiculous, not so much for the world as, above all, for themselves.
They would continue to bear their fetters together, until their death,
in hatred.

The intolerable nature of their existence was enough to give Constance a
feeling of home-sickness for Holland. The last few years in Brussels,
now that their acquaintances were scattered, had been so lonely, so
melancholy, so forlorn, so bitter, so full of dislike, hatred, envy of
Henri, that she yearned for consolation, for some sort of love that
would come to her with open arms and understand and pity her. There were
days when she did not utter a word, after a scene with Henri, until
Adriaan threw his arms about her, while she burst out sobbing on his
childish breast. The boy, in other respects a sturdy lad, had his nerves
so much shaken by this open conflict between his parents that he often
fell ill.

Then both Henri and Constance, greatly alarmed, would suggest parting
from Adriaan, for the boy's own good, so that he might not be a witness
to their inevitable disputes. But they were both too weak. In their
intolerable life Adriaan was the only alleviation. And neither of them
had ever been able to resolve upon this parting; both merely promised
themselves to exercise restraint in future, so that the boy might not
suffer....

Gradually, Constance had talked more and more about Holland, confessed
that she was yearning for all those whom she had left behind. She longed
for them all: her mother, her brothers, her sisters. She yearned for
affection, for family-affection, for the fostering warmth and love and
sympathy of a large circle of relations, who would show her the kindness
which she had known of old, at Buitenzorg, at the Hague. And Van der
Welcke also began to feel that strange nostalgia which urges a man
towards the land of his birth, of his own ton