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210 they help Bertha, how get upon the track of Emilie and Henri? And in the end she could think of nothing to say but:

"Yes, Bertha, the best thing will be to pretend that Emilie has gone for a trip with her brother. We will put it like that, if necessary. What does Van Raven want to do?"

"He won't consent to a divorce . . . And it would be an awful thing, you know . . . Oh, Constance, they have not been married ten months!"

A weariness suddenly came over her, like the abrupt extinction of all the little mundane interests that had always meant so much to her.

"But," she murmured, "if he beats her . . . perhaps it is better that they should be divorced . . . I don't know . . . We are going to Baarn: there is a small villa to let there. I should prefer to take it at once and go down there with Louise and Marianne . . . Karel gives me a lot of trouble: he doesn't behave well, no, he doesn't behave well. And he is still so young. Perhaps he will go to live with Adolph, his guardian, who will be very strict with him. I don't know what to do, I can do nothing . . . I used to do everything with Van Naghel, he and I together. He was really good and kind. We were always thinking of the children, both of us. He was tired . . . of being in the Cabinet; but he went on, for the children's sake . . ."

Her unconscious simplicity, in implying that Van