victory gained, when
the boy went out with her in the afternoon.

"Addie, must you always wear that hat?"

Then, to please her, he did not wear his Boer hat, but a bowler, so as
to look nice when walking with Mamma. And she relaxed, talked to him;
and he laughed back; and she could just take his arm and walked with
evident pride on the arm of her little son. Paul always said that she
flirted with him.... Then Van der Welcke, having nothing to keep him
indoors, went out, went to the Witte, looked up his old friends: young
fellows of the old days, but now, for the most part, portly gentlemen,
filling important posts; he no longer felt at home with them, even when
they talked of the days long past: Leiden, their youthful escapades,
their young years. He felt, when with these men who filled important
posts, that his life was spoilt, thanks to an irrevocable fault. And
disconsolately he came home, from the Witte or from the Plaats, and was
a little gloomy at dinner, until Addie succeeded in cheering him up.
Then, looking more brightly out of his frank, young, blue eyes, Van der
Welcke asked:

"Addie, my boy, what are you doing this evening?"

He asked it as one asks a grown-up person, who makes an appointment or
has an engagement; and the lad answered:

"I have to work, Papa."

"Aren't you going for a ride with me first?"

"For an hour, Papa, that's all."

Then Van der Welcke's face lighted up; and Constance reflected that she
would be alone, all alone, sitting drearily at home, while the evening
drew in. But the bicycles were brought out; and, like two schoolfellows,
they spurted way: Van der Welcke suddenly brighter-looking,
younger-looking; both, father and son, not tall, but well-built, sturdy
and yet refined; their two faces, under the same sort of cap, resembling
each other in that slightly heavy cast of feature: the short nose, the
well-cut mouth, the square chin, the short, curly hair and the eyes of a
happy blue, looking steadily along those roads in the Woods which sped
under their devouring pedals; and they were like two brothers, they
talked like two friends; and, just as Constance had done, that
afternoon, Van der Welcke now let himself go in the evening, feeling,
oh, so young and happy with his son-companion! On returning home, Addie
would look in for a cup of tea with Mamma and afterwards go to his
turret-room to work. And then Van der Welcke always had a pretext, just
like a schoolboy, to go and sit