The Twilight of the Souls Part 34

"But you're looking ill."

"Oh, rot!"

"Yes, you're looking ill."

"I want some air. The weather's not so bad. It's not raining, it's only blowing fit to blow your head off. Are you afraid of the wind, or will you come for a walk with your brother?"

"Very well, Gerrit ... but first eat a nice little egg."

He gave a roar of laughter which made the whole room ring again. The children also laughed: they always laughed when Papa laughed like that; and the laughter gave courage to Gerdy, who had looked frightened at first. She crept up on Gerrit's knees, mad on being caressed, clung on to Gerrit, kissed him with tiny little kisses; and Alex and Guy hung, one on his arm, the other on his leg, while his Homeric laughter still rang long and loud.

And his laughter never ceased. He laughed till the servant peeped round the door and disappeared again, perplexed. He laughed till all the children, the nine of them, were laughing, for his laughter had tempted the three little ones--Jan, the tyrant, and his two small va.s.sals--from the stairs, where they were playing. He laughed till Adeline, the dear quiet little mother, also got a painful fit of giggling, which made her choke silently in herself. And he could not stop; his laughter roared out and filled the house: even a street-boy, out of doors, flattened his nose against the window in an attempt to peer in and discover who was laughing like that inside.

And at last Gerrit got up, released himself from the three children, kissed Constance; and, with a red face, tears in his eyes and a mouth still distorted with merriment, he caught her two shoulders in his great hands and said, looking deep into her eyes:

"Don't be angry, Sissy, but I c-couldn't help it, I c-couldn't help it!... You'll be the death of me with laughing, if you go on like that!... And when you put on that kind little voice and or-order me ...

to eat a n-nice little egg ... before you consent to go for a walk with me...! ... Oh, dear, oh, dear! I shall never get over it!... Very well ... all right ... just to please you ... but then ... but then _you_ must ... b-boil the n-nice little egg for me ... and put it before me ... put my n-nice little egg before me!..."

Constance was laughing too; the children all kept on laughing, like mad, not really knowing what they were laughing at, now that they were all laughing together; and Adeline, Adeline....

"L-look!" said Gerrit, pointing to his wife. "L-look!"

And, while Constance took the egg out of the boiler, she looked round at Adeline. The little mother was still overcome with her fit of silent giggling; the tears rolled down her cheeks; the children around her were screaming with the fun of it.

"I n-never in all my l-life, Connie," said Gerrit, "saw Line laugh ...

as she's laughing at that n-nice little egg of yours...."

And he started afresh. He roared. But she had put his plate in front of him. He now played the clown, took up his spoon, said in a pretty little voice that sounded humorously in his great roaring throat:

"Thank you kindly, Constance ... for your n-nice little egg.... It's too sweet of you!..."

And he nipped at his nice little egg with small, careful spoonfuls, pretending to be very weak and very fragile; and the children, seeing their big, burly father nipping at the nice little egg with dainty little movements, were wild with delight, thought it great fun of Papa....

He had finished and was ready for his walk with Constance.

"Papa, may we come too? Do let us come too, Papa!"

"No," he said, bluntly. "No, don't be such limpets. You're just like a pack of octopuses, winding one in their suckers. No, Father wants to go out with his sister alone, for once...."

And he went out alone with Constance, after she had managed to conceal the disorder of her hair under her hat and veil.

Outside, she said to him:

"Gerrit, how bright it all is in your house, how sunny, how happy!"

"Yes," he said.

"You have every reason to be thankful, Gerrit."

"Yes."

"Do you feel better now, in the air?"

"Yes ... especially after your nice little egg."

"No, don't be silly, Gerrit. You don't look half as well as usual."

"And I feel simply rotten ... if you really want to know."

"Still?"

"Yes ... but it'll pa.s.s off.... I ... I always sleep very well; and just because of that a bad night upsets me...."

"But that's an exception, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course, it's an exception. Don't be anxious about me, Sissy.

I've a hide like a rhinoceros. I'm the pachyderm of the family. I haven't got your dainty little const.i.tution...."

"I am so glad when I come to you, Gerrit. I always brighten up in your house."

"You haven't been gloomy, surely?"

"That's just what I have been, quite lately."

"And why, Connie?"

"I don't know. Because of the weather...."

"Are you afraid of it? It's beginning to rain again."

"As long as it doesn't pour, we can go on walking...."

"It does me good, especially the wind blowing about one. Do you like wind?"

"Yes, I do ... but...."

"But what?"

"Sometimes I hear too much in it."

"My little fanciful sister of old! What do you hear in it?"

"Gloomy things, melancholy things ... but always very big things ...

whereas we ourselves are so small, so very small...."

"People never change.... You're just the little sister that you used to be ... in the river ... with your fairy-tales...."

"But what I hear in the wind is not a fairy-tale."