, to avoid the
sight of that caress, Constance gazed out of the opposite window, in
silence.

They had been to the Van Saetzemas the evening before; and, though
Constance felt irritated at first, she ended with a passion of pity.
Good heavens, how was it possible that Adolphine had become so common!
Whom on earth did she get it from! Mamma, so refined and distinguished!
Papa, her poor father, such an aristocrat, a gentleman of the old
school!... And yet, perhaps, from the Ruyvenaers. You would never have
taken Uncle for a brother of Mamma's. Was it from the Ruyvenaers,
perhaps? Great heavens, how common Adolphine was!... Her husband was a
boor; her house pretentious and slovenly; her girls, the two elder,
pretentious, priggish, envious; Marie, the youngest girl, a sort of
Cinderella, but a sweet, shy, down-trodden, quiet child.... But then
there were the three boys, so repulsive, so slovenly, so rude.... What a
crew, what a crew!... They had gone to take tea there quietly; but it
turned out to be a sort of little evening-party: a regular rabble, as
Van der Welcke, who was furious, had said. Two men in dress-coats and
white ties; the others running through the entire scale of masculine
attire: frock-coats, dinner-jackets, tweeds. Adolphine seemed always to
send out ambiguous invitations; and people never knew what they should
wear nor whom they would meet.... Floortje in a dirty, white, low-necked
dress, if you please; Caroline and Marietje in walking-dress; Van
Saetzema himself looking like a fat farmer, carrying on in his noisy way
with Uncle Ruyvenaer: it was all so vulgar!... Aunt Ruyvenaer was always
good-natured; and the girls, though very Indian-looking, were pleasant
and natural and simple; but, for the rest, the evening, with all sorts
of strangers, was a snare, especially for Van der Welcke, whom, as a
brother-in-law, they might surely have welcomed in a more intimate and
heartier fashion the first time they saw him, after refusing, for years,
to recognize him as a member of the family! And, once back in the hotel,
she had had a violent scene with her husband: he abusing that rabble of
a family of hers, she, defending her family, against her own conviction,
until Addie woke, got out of bed and begged them to be quiet, or he
wouldn't be able to sleep.... The darling, how prettily he had said it,
in that dear little decided way of his, like a regular little man: oh,
where would they be without him! She sometimes