Dr. Adriaan Part 51

"You don't care for me."

"Not in that way. Why shouldn't we be friends?"

"That's nonsense. Friendship between a man and a woman? That's one of those notions which you picked up, I dare say, at Driebergen, among neurotic people. Between a man and a woman there's only ... yearning. I want you and I am in h.e.l.l because I haven't got you."

"Yes, it's always ... that," she said; and she thought of Addie.

"Oh, if you would only go with me ... out of this."

"Would that make me happy?"

"I should live for you entirely. I have a little money...."

"That would make me happy, would it? To leave my husband, to leave my children?"

"Your husband, your children? But I should be there!"

"Yes, but...."

"You don't care for me."

"Not like that."

"All the same, you would become happy.... You never found happiness in your husband--you say so yourself--because you don't understand him. You would understand me."

She began to cry again:

"Oh," she said, "don't go on talking like that!"

"Do you care for me, Tilly, do you care for me?"

"Yes, Johan, I do care for you."

"Well?"

She stood still:

"Listen," she said, looking him straight in the eyes. "I care for you."

Her voice sounded loving in spite of herself. "I care for you ... very much indeed. At this moment, perhaps even more than for Addie ... I'm not quite sure. A time may come ... _may_ come, when I shall care for you even _more_ ... certainly more than for Addie."

"Oh," he cried, "but then...."

"Don't speak," she said. "Listen to me. What you're asking of me ... I refuse."

"Why?"

"Because I am an honest woman.... Because I am naturally an honest woman.... Because I always mean to be an honest woman.... I could never do what you ask me to.... Because, even if I had to say good-bye to my husband, I should never, never be willing to say good-bye to my children."

"You love your children better?"

"Better? I love them in a way which a man like you simply cannot understand."

"Tilly! Tilly!"

"Be quiet!... There are people coming.... Be quiet!"

"Oh, Tilly, what then?"

"I don't know," she said, dully. "Oh, come along to the club; we'll play some tennis!"

She quickened her pace; he followed her, lurching like a drunken man.

[1] Running from the Hague to Scheveningen through the Dunes, as opposed to the electric tram running through the Scheveningen Woods.

CHAPTER XXIX

When Addie found the telegram he at once took the train to Driebergen.

It was evening when he arrived.

"What's the matter with Emilie?" he asked his mother.

"She's crying all day long," said Constance. "It's just like last year."

He went straight upstairs to Emilie's room and found her sobbing, sobbing in Adeline's arms.

"I'm at my wits' ends what to do with her," said Adeline.

"Leave me alone with her for a moment, Aunt," whispered Addie. "Here,"

feeling in his pocket, "here's a letter from Guy, posted in New York.

You'll see that he has found work, thanks to Mr. Brauws' introduction."

Adeline left the room; Emilie went on sobbing. She flung herself on the floor, with her face against a chair and her hair dishevelled, her thin hands grasping the chair.

"Addie!" she cried. "Addie! Is that you?"

"Yes, Emilie."

"Oh, it's suffocating me, it's suffocating me!... Let me tell you about it!..."

He sat down and she came to him with the movement of an animal creeping towards him. She stammered incoherent words, but he understood them: he knew the words of old; he knew what she was saying: it had been the same thing last year and the year before. At the beginning of each summer there was some fit of madness which mastered her, a fit in which she lived all over again through things that had happened in the years long ago. Oh, it was a terrible secret which she always carried about with her, which no one knew, which no one had ever known! In the dark room, with the closed sun-blinds, the secret stifled her and had to be told, because it stifled her in her heart and throat.

"I must tell it you, Addie.... It was during those last days, those terrible days in Paris. Eduard, my husband, was in Paris and ... and he had been threatening me.... You remember, you _must_ remember: I told you as much as that, didn't I?... He had come to look for me in Paris.

He hated me ... and he hated, oh, how he hated Henri!... Henri, my poor brother, my brother!... Addie, Addie, let me tell you everything!...