Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/128

120 "Say, half right," said Van Raven, echoing her emphasis.

Toetie tittered behind her cards; and Auntie said:

"Ajo, Edua-r-r-rd, you! . . . Attend to the game . . . Your lead!"

Cateau was no match for Van Raven at laconic repartee and so she preferred to go on talking about Constance and said:

"Is she nev-er com-ing to Mo-ther's Sun-days again? Ah, I ex-pect she's been fright-ened away!"

"By you?" asked Eduard, gleefully capturing Cateau's knave of trumps.

"No, by the old aunts. It was re-ally ve-ry tactless ... of the two old aunts . . . Isn't it aw-ful: about Mari-anne and Van der Wel-cke?"

Karel, Van Saetzema and Dijkerhof were playing three-handed bridge at the third table. They had begun in grim silence, each of them eager to play the dummy, and inwardly Karel thought his sister Adolphine dowdy, Van Saetzema thought his sister-in-law Cateau dowdy, while Dijkerhof thought both his aunts very dowdy, hardly presentable. All three, however, kept their thoughts locked up in the innermost recesses of their souls, so that outwardly they were playing very seriously, their eyes fixed greedily and attentively on the dummy's exposed cards. Suddenly, however, Karel said: