She shut herself up; she saw little of her children; she told her friends that she was ill. She was at home to no visitors. She guessed intuitively that people in their circles were speaking of Quaerts and herself. Life hung dull about her in a closely-woven web of tiresome, tedious meshes; and she remained motionless in her corner, to avoid entangling herself in those meshes. Once Jules forced his way to her; he went upstairs, in spite of Greta’s protests; he sought her in the little boudoir and, not finding her, went resolutely to her bedroom. He knocked without receiving a reply, but entered nevertheless. The room was half in darkness, for she kept the blinds lowered; in the shadow of the canopy which rose above the bedstead, [226]with its hangings of old-blue brocade, Cecile lay sleeping. Her tea-gown was open over her breast; the train trailed from the bed and lay creased over the carpet; her hair spread loosely over the pillows; one of her hands was clutching nervously at the tulle bed-curtains.

“Auntie!” cried Jules. “Auntie!”

He shook her by the arm; and she woke heavily, with heavy, blue-girt eyes. She did not recognize him at first and thought that he was little Dolf.

“It’s me, Auntie; Jules....”

She knew him now, asked how he came there, what was the matter and if he did not know that she was ill?

“I knew, but I wanted to speak to you. I came to speak to you about ... him....”

“Him?”

“About Taco. He asked me to tell you. He couldn’t write to you, he said. [227]He is going on a long journey with his friend from Brussels; he will be away a long time and he would like ... he would like to take leave of you.”

“To take leave?”

“Yes; and he told me to ask you if he might see you once more?”

She had half-raised herself and was looking at Jules with a vacant air. In an instant the memory ran through her brain of the long look which Jules had directed on her so strangely when she saw Quaerts for the first time and spoke to him coolly and distantly:

“Have you many relations in The Hague?... You have no occupation, I believe?... Sport?... Oh!...”

Then came the memory of Jules playing the piano, of Rubinstein’s Romance, of the ecstasy of his fantasia: the glittering rainbows and the souls turning to angels. [228]

“To take leave?” she repeated.

Jules nodded:

“Yes, Auntie, he is going away for ever so long.”

He could have shed tears himself and there were tears in his voice, but he would not give way and his eyes merely grew moist.

“He told me to ask you,” he repeated, with difficulty.

“If he can come and take leave?”

“Yes, Auntie.”

She made no reply, but lay staring before her. An emptiness began to stretch before her, in endle............