Small Souls Part 19

"Well, that evening they gave their grand affair. To-night is only a small party for us and the rag-tag of their acquaintance. The other night, Bertha wore a low-necked dress and a train. To-night, she has a high frock."

Uncle laughed:

"Yes," he said, "these parties at hotels are always scratch affairs. The dinner was only so-so."

"Regular hotel-food."

"H'm. The champagne was good," said Uncle, who had drunk his fill.

"How badly Van Naghel spoke! Does he speak as badly as that when he introduces his Indian budget? And what a figure Van Raven's mother cuts!

She looks like I don't know what!"

"Still, they're smart people."

"Yes, of course they're smart, or Bertha would never have seized upon him for her daughter! He's a fast creature, that future nephew of mine.

And how Emilie hangs on to him! If Floortje hung on to Dijkerhof like that, I should give her a good talking-to when we got home. Emilie behaves just like a street-girl."

Uncle was in a good humour, because he had plenty to drink; he was puffing a bit and would have liked to undo a b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat: that dress-waistcoat of his was getting rather tight for him.

"How pretty Floortje is looking, Adolphine. That white suits her."

She laughed happily; she felt flattered:

"Yes, doesn't it? It makes Emilie look so pale."

Mamma van Lowe pa.s.sed on Otto van Naghel's arm:

"Is Frances better, my boy?"

"Yes, Granny, she's pretty well to-day. But she gets tired so soon."

He was tall and thin, with a scowl above his hard Van Lowe eyes, his grandfather's eyes. His two years in Java had made him so bitter that it was painful for his grandmother and his parents to listen to him.

"What a pity, Otto, that you had to leave India!"

"Oh, bah, Granny, what a country! It's all very well for you to talk: you know India as the wife of a resident and as the wife of the governor-general. But for young people, starting life...."

"Papa would have helped you, you know...."

"A lot of help Papa could have given!... A beastly country; a dirty, wretched country!"

"But, Otto, I thought it delightful."

"No doubt, in your palace at Buitenzorg. That goes without saying. But were you ever clerk to the magistrates at Rankas-Betoeng?"

"No."

"No, of course not. And that with a wife who topples over like a ninepin, twice a week, with the heat, flat on the floor!"

"Otto!"

"Oh, come, Grandmamma! It's the most confounded, beastly, filthy country I ever was in. We had much better sell those colonies to England; she'll only take them from us, one day, if we don't."

"Otto, really I'm not used to this language!"

"Oh, yes, Granny, I know all that official bombast about India! But we can't all be governor-general or colonial minister. If I ever become that, I shall begin to worship India at once."

"You're upset because Frances is ill."

"Ill? Ill? It takes a woman to be ill. She's not even that. She's a reed. If you blow upon her, she breaks."

"She was a delicate little thing as a girl, Otto."

"Well, but look here, Granny: I can't turn her into a robust little thing, can I?"

"For shame, Otto! Don't be so bitter. You've got two darling little children."

"Yes, children; I wish I hadn't. I'm sorry for the poor little devils.... Is the show beginning now? Tableaux-vivants, arranged by dear old Louise.... A play without words by Frans and Henri.... Stale things, these wedding-parties, always. I thought ours insufferable."

"My dear Otto, you're in an intolerable humour."

"I'm always like that now, Granny."

"Then I strongly advise you to exercise a little self-control, or you will never have any happiness in life, in your own or your wife's or your family's."

"The family doesn't affect my happiness."

"What do you mean, Otto?"

"Why, I don't live and move and have my being in my family, Granny!"

"Oh, really, my boy, you're too horrid! Take me back to my seat. I see your mother beckoning to me: she wants me to sit between her and Aunt Ruyvenaer. The performance is beginning...."

"Ye-e-es," Cateau was whining to Van Saetzema, Van der Welcke and Karel.

"An evening-party of six-ty peo-ple. And the Rus-sian _Minister_ was there, and the Mis-tress of the _Robes_."

"Well, after all, if they have so many acquaintances," said Karel, under his breath, by way of excuse.

"Ye-e-es, but, Ka-rel, none of the fam-ily. Van der Wel-cke, were _you_ invited, by chance?"

"No."

"Oh, not you ei-ther? Well, I should have _thought_ that she would have asked Con-stance...."

"Why?" asked Van der Welcke, coldly.

"We-ell, because she used to go to _Court_, in the _old_ days. And you _too_, didn't you, Van der Welcke?"

"Yes, I too," said Van der Welcke, drily.