a, after dinner, at the Van Saetzemas':
Adolphine and her husband."

"I am longing to see my father and mother."

"Very well; offend my family for the sake of yours and write and refuse
the Van Saetzemas."

"There is no question of offending anybody. I am longing to see my
parents; and we must show them that we appreciate their letter."

"Appreciate?" she asked, bitterly. "What am I to appreciate? That it
took them thirteen years to say they would like to see their
grandchild?"

"Your family weren't pining to see you either, all those years."

"That's not true. Mamma came to see us at Brussels."

He laughed, scornfully:

"In thirteen years, twice, for two days each time!"

She stamped her foot:

"Mamma is an old woman; she never travels."

"My parents also are old; and they have had a hard struggle with their
principles and convictions."

"So I am to be grateful to them?"

He looked at her fixedly:

"Grateful?" he echoed. "You've never been that. Not to them nor to
me...."

She clenched her fists:

"Again!" she screamed. "Always again and again! Nothing but reproaches
for ruining your career, for ... for...."

She sobbed aloud.

"Mamma!" said Addie.

The boy was between them. He was everything to both of them. He never
understood the cause of those quarrels, the ground of those reproaches:
and, until now, he had never reflected how strange it was that his
father's relations and his mother's were always so far away, so
inaccessible. But he did not ask, even if he did not understand; and
yet, though he did not understand this particular thing, he was no
longer a child. He was a little man by now; and his heart was all the
heavier because he did not know and did not understand. But he
shouldered his burden like a hero.

She kissed the boy:

"Ah!" she wept. "You like him better than me, Addie: go to him, go to
him!"

"Mamma," he said, "I love you both the same. Don't cry, Mamma; don't be
so quick, so impatient...."

Van der Welcke drank his coffee.

She clasped the child to her, kissed him fiercely:

"I'm going out, Addie. You're very good, but I'm going out: I want air."

"Shall I go with you?"

"No, stay with Papa...."

She could not bear to see them together at this first moment of his
return; after the past ten days, she must harden herself again to seeing
him caress the child; and now, now she was running away, so that she
might not see it. She put on her hat; kissed Addie once m