Page:Dr Adriaan (1918).djvu/46

40 meat will go and watching every half-penny that the servant spends. No, thank you, it's not good enough."

"Then, Tilly . . ."

"What then?"

"Then I see no chance . . . of moving to the Hague."

"Well," she said in her dull tone of piqued indifference, "then let's stay here."

"But you're not happy here."

"Oh, what does my happiness matter?"

"I should like to see you happy."

"Why, you no longer love me!"

"I do love you, Tilly, very much."

"No, you don't love me. How could you love me? Do you think I don't see it? You love all of them here, all your relations: you don't love me. You hardly love your children."

"Tilly!"

"No, you hardly love your own children."

"Tilly, you've no right to speak like that. Because I'm fond of Uncle Gerrit's children, is that any reason why I shouldn't be fond of you . . . and of Stan and little Jet?"

She had risen, tremulously. She looked into his grave eyes, which gazed at her long and almost sorrowfully, from under his heavily-knitted, tawny eyebrows. She had intended to overwhelm him with reproaches; but on the contrary she threw herself on his breast, with her arms around his neck:

"Tell me that you love me!" she cried, with a great sob.

"I love you, Tilly, you know I love you."

He kissed her. But she heard it through his voice, she felt it through his kiss: he no longer loved her. All at once, suddenly, the certainty of it poured a coldness as of ice into her soul. She held