in for it, that he would have to
listen to his sister for a quarter of an hour at least; but he made up
his mind to interrupt her pretty often. So he rubbed his large, fat,
pink hands and looked at Dorine impassively; and his glance seemed to
convey:

"Go on, I'm listening, I can't help myself...."

Dorine stood near his writing-table, which was in the middle of the prim
room, while he remained sitting by the fire.

"I've been to all of them!" Dorine began triumphantly.

"To Bertha?"

"To Bertha."

"To Gerrit?"

"To Gerrit."

"To Adolphine?"

"And to Ernst and Paul: I've been to all of them!" said Dorine,
triumphantly. "And they've all promised to come."

"Dorine, would you mind putting your umbrella outside? It's so wet."

Dorine put her umbrella in the passage outside the door and she now also
let fall her skirt, the hem of which showed an edge of wet mud at which
her brother kept staring as though hypnotized.

"And what did Bertha say?" he asked, pretending to be interested, but
giving all his attention to the wet hem.

"Well, Bertha was very nice! I must say, Bertha was very nice!" said
Dorine; and the tears, always so ready with her, came into her dark
eyes. "She was very busy with the girls, drawing up the lists of
invitations for Emilie's wedding; and to-morrow they have one of their
official dinners. But she said at once that, if Mamma wished it, we must
all of us obey her wish and go to Mamma's to-night to meet Constance.
And Van Naghel, who came in for a moment, said so too. Bertha never
agreed with Mamma, about encouraging Constance to come back to Holland;
but, now that things had gone as far as they had, she said she would
look upon Constance as a sister again, quite as a sister."

"And what did Van Naghel say?" asked Karel van Lowe.

Karel was not really interested in what his brother-in-law, Van Naghel
van Voorde, the colonial secretary, had said, but he had a methodical
mind and, now that he knew Bertha's opinion, he also wanted to know her
husband's opinion and the opinion of all the other brothers and sisters.
Meanwhile, he continued to look at the wet hem of Dorine's skirt and
longed to ask her not to touch his paper-knife and paper-weight, which
she kept playing with half-nervously; but he said nothing, calculating
within himself that, presently, when Dorine was gone, he would have a
moment, before dinner, to put everything straight.

"Well, I gathered from what Van Naghel said