[2] The lunch or tiffin of the Dutch East Indies, consisting of rice
with a great variety of spiced meats and vegetables.

[3] Cakes.

[4] Lord!

[5] Poor dear!

CHAPTER III

"Dorine," asked Constance, "where is Papa's portrait?"

"In the boudoir."

"Oh, so Mamma has moved it! I want to see it."

She went with Dorine through the drawing-room, past the card-tables....
She noticed that the conversation at once stopped at the table where
Adolphine and Uncle Ruyvenaer were playing and that her sister raised
her voice and said:

"Did I deal?... Diamonds!"

"They were talking about me," thought Constance.

She went into the boudoir with Dorine: there was a card-table, with
cards and markers, but there was no one in the room. Decanters and
glasses, sandwiches and cakes had been put out in readiness for later.

"Papa," said Constance, softly.

She looked up at the big portrait. It was not a work of art; it was
painted in the regulation, wooden style of thirty or forty years before;
and it struck Constance as an ugly daub, dark and flat, in spite of all
the gold on the governor-general's uniform, all the stars of the orders.
The portrait represented a tall and commanding man, with a hard face and
dark, stony eyes.

"I ... I used to think that portrait much finer," said Constance. "Was
Papa so hard?..."

Her eyes were riveted on her father's face.... She had certainly been
his favourite daughter. Her marriage to De Staffelaer, his friend, a man
much older than herself, had pleased him, because it flattered his
ambition.... But then, then he fell ill; he died soon after, soon after
the thing that happened: that and her marriage to Van der Welcke.... Oh
God, was it she who had killed him?

She drew Dorine to her:

"Tell me, Dorine.... Was Papa ill for long?"

"Yes, Connie, very long."

They were silent. They thought of their father, of his ambition, of his
longing for the greatness which he achieved; of his wish to see his
children also great, high-placed and powerful....

"I say, Dorine, how strange it is ... that not one of Papa's sons ..."

"What do you mean, Connie?"

"Nothing.... I don't know...."

Papa had always helped Van Naghel.... Her thoughts ran on:

"Dorine, is Karel still a burgomaster?"

"Oh, no, Connie! Karel and Cateau have been living at the Hague for
years."

"And Gerrit is ... a captain?"

"Yes, in the hussars."

"I am quite out of everything.... And Ernst ... does