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290 Welcke was not hungry, did not eat. The servant took something up to Constance. Dinner was over in a quarter of an hour.

"I am tired!" Van der Welcke confessed.

The maid had soon cleared the table. And they remained in the dining-room, which was now growing dark.

The French windows were open and the sultry evening filled the room. Van der Welcke, who had thrown himself into a chair, got up restlessly, strode into the garden, came back again. When he saw Addie sitting quietly on the sofa, he flung himself beside him, laid his head on the boy's knees. Then, with a deep sigh, he fell asleep, almost immediately.

Addie sat without moving, let his father sleep there, with his head on his son's knees.

From another villa, a stream of yellow light flowed across the garden and cast dim shadows in the dark dining-room. And in the kitchen the maid went on drearily humming the same tune as in the afternoon, as though she were humming unconsciously.

The boy sat still, with set lips, looking down at his father, whose chest rose and fell peacefully, with the deep breathing which Addie felt against his hand. ..

That afternoon, those two, his father and mother, had spoken to each other, for the first time, seriously, in truth and sincerity, as his mother had told him.