Rankas-Betoeng?"

"No."

"No, of course not. And that with a wife who topples over like a
ninepin, twice a week, with the heat, flat on the floor!"

"Otto!"

"Oh, come, Grandmamma! It's the most confounded, beastly, filthy country
I ever was in. We had much better sell those colonies to England; she'll
only take them from us, one day, if we don't."

"Otto, really I'm not used to this language!"

"Oh, yes, Granny, I know all that official bombast about India! But we
can't all be governor-general or colonial minister. If I ever become
that, I shall begin to worship India at once."

"You're upset because Frances is ill."

"Ill? Ill? It takes a woman to be ill. She's not even that. She's a
reed. If you blow upon her, she breaks."

"She was a delicate little thing as a girl, Otto."

"Well, but look here, Granny: I can't turn her into a robust little
thing, can I?"

"For shame, Otto! Don't be so bitter. You've got two darling little
children."

"Yes, children; I wish I hadn't. I'm sorry for the poor little
devils.... Is the show beginning now? Tableaux-vivants, arranged by dear
old Louise.... A play without words by Frans and Henri.... Stale things,
these wedding-parties, always. I thought ours insufferable."

"My dear Otto, you're in an intolerable humour."

"I'm always like that now, Granny."

"Then I strongly advise you to exercise a little self-control, or you
will never have any happiness in life, in your own or your wife's or
your family's."

"The family doesn't affect my happiness."

"What do you mean, Otto?"

"Why, I don't live and move and have my being in my family, Granny!"

"Oh, really, my boy, you're too horrid! Take me back to my seat. I see
your mother beckoning to me: she wants me to sit between her and Aunt
Ruyvenaer. The performance is beginning...."

"Ye-e-es," Cateau was whining to Van Saetzema, Van der Welcke and Karel.
"An evening-party of six-ty peo-ple. And the Rus-sian _Minister_ was
there, and the Mis-tress of the _Robes_."

"Well, after all, if they have so many acquaintances," said Karel, under
his breath, by way of excuse.

"Ye-e-es, but, Ka-rel, none of the fam-ily. Van der Wel-cke, were _you_
invited, by chance?"

"No."

"Oh, not you ei-ther? Well, I should have _thought_ that she would have
asked Con-stance...."

"Why?" asked Van der Welcke, coldly.

"We-ell, because she used to go to _Court_, in the _old_ days. And you
_too_, didn't you, Van der Welcke?"