full of imagination; and it was curious to
hear this great, heavy hussar going into ecstasies over that little
sister of the old days: a frail, fair-haired little girl, in her white
_baadje;_ she used to walk on her pretty little bare feet over the
boulders and invent all sorts of fables and fairy-tales, which her elder
brothers were not quite capable of understanding and yet had to play at,
good-humouredly, for the two brothers were very fond of their little
sister. Yes, Gerrit always said, he had not understood until afterwards
how much poetry there was in Constance in the days when she dreamed
those stories, those fables, in which she often played a fairy, or a
_poetri_ out of the Javanese legends: at such times, she would wreathe
her hair with a garland of broad leaves; she would look like Ophelia, in
the water, decked with tropical blossoms; and the brothers must needs
follow the tiny bare feet and the fancies of their little sister, who
looked marvellously charming as she ran over the great rocks, ran
through the foaming water, ran in crystal green shadows, which quivered
over the river, under the heavy awning of the foliage. Yes, that had
left a great impression on Gerrit; and he often talked about it:

"Constance, do you remember? What a nice little girl you were then,
though you were a little queer!..."

Until Constance would laugh and ask if she was no longer nice now that
she no longer ran about barefoot in a white _baadje_ with purple
_kembang-spatoe_[20] on her temples. Then Gerrit shook his head and
said, yes, she was very nice still, but ... but.... And, diving back
into his recollections, he said that, two years later, she suddenly
changed, became grown-up and a prig and would dance with no one but the
secretary-general.... And then Constance cried with laughter, because
Gerrit could never forget that secretary-general. Yes, she would only
dance with the biggest big-wigs: she was a mass of vanity, a real
daughter of the _Toean Besar_.[21] And it was as though Gerrit were bent
upon getting back that little younger sister who used to make up
fairy-tales in the river behind the Palace at Buitenzorg,
notwithstanding that he was now a big, heavy, powerful fellow and a
captain of hussars. Then Constance would look at him, handsome, broad,
fair-haired, vigorous, enjoying his drink or his good cigar, and she
reflected that she did not know Gerrit and did not understand Gerrit:
very vaguely she felt something in