# Small Souls/Chapter IX

That evening, after dinner, Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie went to Mrs. van Lowe’s, where they found Dorine, who wanted to meet her brother-in-law.
“I was thinking of you to-day,” she said. “I had a lot of errands to do, for Bertha; and so, as I was going through the town, I thought to myself, ‘I’ll go on to Duinoord and see if there are many houses to let.’ I’m simply worn out!”
“But Dorine, how sweet of you!” said Constance.
Van der Welcke too was surprised:
“That’s really extremely kind of you, my new sister!”
“Here is a list I made, with the rent, in most cases.”
“Only, Dorine, Duinoord is so far from Mamma.”
“Yes; but, Connie,” said Mamma, “you can’t get anything in this neighbourhood for eight hundred guilders.”
“What’s the use of living at the Hague,” said Constance, impatiently, “and being an hour away from you? I want to live near you.”
“Well, we shall see,” Van der Welcke ventured to put in.
“See, see, see!” said Constance, angrily. “I ​want to have my own house quickly. The hotel is expensive; and I dislike it. By the time the furniture has come from Brussels, by the time we are settled. . . .”
“Oh, well, Mummy,” said Addie, decisively, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”
She smiled at once. Every word spoken by her child was a balm, an anodyne. The old grandmother smiled. Dorine smiled.
“Addie,” said Mamma van Lowe, “you must do your best to help Papa and Mamma with the house.”
“Yes, Granny. It won’t be plain sailing. . . .”
The child was more at his ease than on the Sunday evening. Granny was very kind; so was Aunt Dorine, to trot about like that, after those houses.
“Aunt Dorine, do you always run errands?”
Everybody laughed: it was a mania of Dorine’s to traverse the Hague daily from end to end; she was a very willing creature and she was particularly busy just now for Bertha and Adolphine, because of the two weddings.
Ernst and Paul entered.
“We heard that Van der Welcke was at Mamma’s,” said Paul, “and we’ve come to be introduced.”
“These at least are not visits in optima forma,” thought Constance to herself.
Ernst resembled Bertha and blinked his eyes; but, in addition, he was odd, shy, always timid, even in the family-circle. There was something bashful ​about him, as though he wanted to run away as soon as he could. But he made an effort and suddenly asked Constance:
“Are you fond of china?”
“Delft, do you mean?”
“Yes. Are you fond of vases? I love vases. I have all sorts of vases. Have you ever thought of a vase: the shape, the symbol of a vase? No, you don’t know what I mean. Will you come and see me one day, in my rooms? Will you come and lunch: you and your husband? Then I’ll show you my vases.”
Constance smiled:
“I should love to, Ernst. Have you so many rare vases?”
“Yes,” he said in a proud whisper. “I have some very rare ones. I am always afraid they will be stolen. They are my children.”
And he laughed; and she laughed too, while shrinking a little from him and from coming to those rooms filled with vases that were children. She did not know what more to say to Ernst; and she now told Mamma, softly, that old Mr. and Mrs. van der Welcke, her father- and mother-in-law, had asked them to Driebergen.
Mrs. van Lowe beamed and whispered:
“Child, I am so glad! I am so glad they have done that. It’s been running in my head all this time, what attitude they would take up to you. After all, Adriaan is their grandson as well as mine.” ​“For thirteen years . . .” Constance began, bitterly.
“Child, child, don’t bear malice, don’t bear malice. Make no more reproaches. All will come right, my child. I am so glad. They are different from us, dear, not so broad-minded, very orthodox and strict in their principles. And, when, at the time, they insisted that Van der Welcke should marry you, that was a great sacrifice on their part, child: it shattered their son’s career.”
“Why?” exclaimed Constance, in a whisper, but vehemently. “It shattered his career? Why? Why need he have left the service?”
“Dear, it was so difficult for him to remain, after the scandal.”
Constance gave a scornful laugh:
“In that circle, where there is nothing but scandal which they hush up!”
“Hush, child: don’t be so violent, don’t be so irritable. I am so glad, Connie! I could kiss those old people. I will call on them too, when you have been . . . to embrace them. . . .”
Mamma was in tears. Constance pressed her hands to her breast: she was suffocating.
“Very well, Mamma,” she said, softly and calmly. “I will be grateful, all my life long, to Papa and Mamma van der Welcke, to Henri, to you, to all of you! . . .”
“Child, don’t be bitter. Try to be a little happy now, among us all. We will all try to be nice to you and to make you forget the past. . . .” ​“Mamma! . . .”
She embraced the old woman:
“Mamma, don’t cry! I am happy, I really am, to be back, back among all of you!”