Small Souls Part 58

"But what do they say?"

"Nothing. Don't read it."

But she hardly listened to Gerrit, for she now saw Van der Welcke and Paul standing in a corner, in the back-drawing-room. She moved in their direction. She saw that Van der Welcke, with his back turned to the other room, was reading something, screened by a curtain, while Paul was warning him, anxiously:

"Come, give it me, quick ... Van der Welcke...."

Constance was behind them:

"Paul, tell me, that article...."

"The scoundrels, the scoundrels!" Van der Welcke was hissing.

"Henri, have you it? Give it to me."

"No, Constance!" Paul implored her. "Don't read it, don't read it."

"Give it to me, Henri!"

"I want to read it myself first!"

And he cursed as he read:

"The d.a.m.ned scoundrels! And it's not true; it didn't happen like that...."

"But what is it they say?" Constance demanded, furiously.

Paul took her by the arm and led her into the little boudoir, where their father's portrait hung:

"Be quiet, Constance. Please, please don't read it! What good will it do you; all that dirty language, all that vulgarity? It's filthy, it's filthy!"

"And is there nothing we can do?"

"No, no, for G.o.d's sake, no!" Paul begged, as though preferring to hush up, everything. "Every one will have forgotten it in ten days' time."

"Is there nothing we can do?"

"What do you want to do?" Paul asked, changing his tone, harshly.

"Surely you wouldn't sue the cad for libel?"

"No, no!" she said, startled and terrified.

"Well, what then? Keep quiet, don't read it don't upset yourself about it...."

But Van der Welcke came up to them. He was purple, there was no restraining him:

"I'm going to the fellow...."

"For G.o.d's sake, Van der Welcke!"

Uncle Ruyvenaer joined them:

"What are you doing in here? Oh, yes, that rag! It's disgraceful, it's disgraceful!"

"I want to read it!" cried Constance.

"No!" they all three exclaimed. "Don't read it!"

"Don't let Mamma notice!" Uncle Ruyvenaer warned them.

And he went away, full of suppressed excitement.

But they remained in the boudoir. The portrait looked down upon them.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Constance began sobbing; and she looked up at the portrait. "Papa, Papa! Oh, my G.o.d!"

"Hush, Constance!"

"Let me read it!"

"No."

Adolphine appeared in the doorway. She said nothing, but realized what they were talking about and turned away. And they heard Adolphine say aloud, in a hard voice, to Uncle Ruyvenaer:

"It's their own fault!"

Van der Welcke flared up, no longer able to master himself. He spun round to the door; Paul tried to hold him back, but it was too late; and, on the threshold, with his face close to Adolphine's, he roared:

"Why is it my own fault?"

"Why?" asked Adolphine, furiously, remembering the lofty tone which he had adopted to her after the quarrel of the two boys. "Why? You should have remained in Brussels!"

"Adolphine!" cried Van der Welcke, purple in the face, seething, roaring, with every nerve quivering. "You're a woman and an ill-mannered woman; and so you can allow yourself to say anything you please to a man. But, if your husband shares your opinion that I ought to have remained in Brussels, he's only got to tell me so, in your name or in his own! Then I'll send him my seconds!"

Van Saetzema came up at that moment.

"Then I'll send you my seconds!" Van der Welcke repeated, blazing.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't, my dear fellow!" cried Van Saetzema, frightened to death.

And Adolphine began to clasp her hands together; she too was frightened and took refuge in a feeble exhibition of wounded vanity:

"He says I'm ill-mannered! He says I'm ill-mannered! The hound! The cad!

I have to swallow everything! Every one says just what he likes to _me_!"

She was now really crying into her handkerchief. Everything in the two drawing-rooms seemed in one great ferment of excitement. On all sides, there were quick, hushed conversations, whispered words, nervous glances among the brothers and sisters and their juniors, the nephews and nieces; not a single quiet group had been formed; the card-tables remained untouched; and there was no one at the table in the conservatory where the children's round games were played.

"Herman!" Mamma called out, almost querulously. "Aren't you going to start a rubber?"