Small Souls. Louis Couperus

so that Addie should not hear. "Forgive her that past which is always there, which has never become the past for good and all. Forgive her … and love her a little!"

      She burst into nervous sobs and, impulsively, knelt down by her sister and laid her head on her breast and felt how poor and thin Adolphine was in her arms. A damp smell of rain was steaming from her muddy dress.

      "Dear Constance!" said Adolphine, really touched. "Certainly, I care for you. And that past was so long ago: we have all of us forgotten about it."

      But Constance sobbed and sobbed.

      "Mamma!" said Addie.

      She drew him to her also, held her sister and her boy in a close embrace.

      "Come, Constance. … "

      "Mamma, don't cry. … You always have such a headache, Mummy, after crying like that."

      She controlled herself, stood up; and Adolphine found a few kind words. Adolphine was certainly touched, but she was cross about that bolero and, besides, she found Addie better-looking, more taking, almost, than any of her own three ugly, lubberly boys. However, she kissed Constance and arranged for Constance to come and take tea with her next evening. When Constance was a little calmer and had laughed a little through her tears, Adolphine took her leave with a warm kiss:

      "And I'll just leave Van Saetzema's card, shall I, Constance, here, by Karel's, for Van der Welcke? Then he'll get it when he arrives. … "

      She put down the card and, suddenly unable to restrain herself, went, as though in passing, to the bolero, looked at it and said, in a voice that bore no resemblance to the envious thoughts that still smouldered in her heart:

      "But, Constance! … Do you still wear those short little jackets?"

      "Oh, they've been the fashion so long!" answered Constance, still thinking of the visiting-cards.

      "Well, I don't know: they'd be too short for me, at my age, I think!"

      Seeing that she was younger than Constance, the remark was not only unkind, but dishonest; and Adolphine, now satisfied, went away.

      Constance stared at the two visiting-cards and suddenly burst out sobbing again.

      Addie took her in his arms. He was already nearly as tall as she was:

      "Mamma," he said, gently, with his resolute lad's voice, "don't cry so; and go and lie down a little. You have to go to Grandmamma's to-night; and you'll be too tired if you don't rest first."

      And he helped her to take off some of her things and settled her pillows for her.

      She lay on the bed, sobbing convulsively, without really remembering why.

      The boy sat down by the window, near the console-table, and took up his book, a story of the Boer war. A movement of his arm sent the two cards over. He just glanced down at them, at those two pieces of paste-board formalism, let them lie on the carpet and went on reading. …