el and
Cateau urged Adolphine to sit down: otherwise, she would have been
obliged to come back another day.

They all sat down: the brother, the sister, the sister-in-law. Outside,
the rain was pouring in torrents; and already the brougham was
glistening with the wet: Cateau's saucer-eyes watched every drop through
the curtains. The usual drawing-room talk began:

"What terrible wea-ther, isn't it, Adolph-ine?"

"Terrible."

Adolphine was thin, angular, envious, badly-dressed. Beside the
prosperous, opulent respectability of Karel and Cateau, sleek with good
living, heavy with comfort, radiating money and ease--Karel in his thick
frieze great-coat, Cateau in a rich silk dress and a rich fur-trimmed
jacket, with a rich toque crowning her round, pink-and-white, full-moon
face--Adolphine looked shabby, peevish and pretentious. The stuff of her
clothes could not compare with Cateau's, which were eloquent of money,
good, substantial money; and yet Adolphine had certain pretentions to
fashion and elegance. A thin, straggling boa wound its length around her
neck. Her fringe, out of curl because of the wet, hung in rats'-tails
from under a shabby little hat, draped in a limp veil. It was as though
Adolphine felt this, for she said, enviously:

"I didn't trouble to put on anything decent, in this beastly rain."

Cateau looked meaningly at the carriage outside:

"So you're going to Con-stance' al-so?..."

"Yes. But when will Van der Welcke be here? Saetzema is waiting to pay
his visit until Van der Welcke comes...."

"You see?" said Karel to Cateau.

"Oh?" asked Cateau, drawling her words more than ever. "Is Saet-zema
wait-ing until Van der Wel-cke comes?... Oh, I told Karel to come with
me because, per-haps, it wouldn't look friend-ly.... What do you think
of Con-stance, Adolphine? Karel thinks his sis-ter so al-tered, so
al-tered...."

"Yes, she's altered. She has grown old, very old," said Adolphine, who,
herself four years younger than Constance, looked decidedly older.

"Oh, I don't know!" said Karel, trying to defend his sister. "You would
never say she was forty-two...."

"Oh, is she forty-_two_?" drawled Cateau.

"I'll tell you what I think," said Adolphine. "I don't think Constance
looks a bit distinguished."

When Adolphine was envious and jealous--and that was generally--she said
the exact opposite of what she thought in her heart.

"Not a bit distinguished!" she repeated, with conviction. "There is