Page:Small Souls (1919).djvu/232

224 you! Your grey cashmere suits you much better.”

“Yes, Adolphine, but that’s a walking-dress.”

“Oh, of course, you can’t wear that at a dinner, at a dinner-party. Still, I prefer that walking-dress.”

“Won’t you come in for a moment?”

“No, I’m only in walking-dress, you see, Constance dear. And Carolientje too. And then I don’t want to disturb you, at your men’s dinner-party.”

“I’m sorry, Adolphine, that you should have called just this night, if you won’t come in. Come in to tea some other evening soon, will you?”

“Well, you see, I don’t often come this way: you live so far from everywhere, in this depressing Kerkhoflaan. At least, I always think it depressing. What induced you to come and live here, tell me, between two graveyards? It’s not healthy to live in, you know, because of the miasma. . . .”

“Oh, we never notice anything!”

“Ah, that’s because you always keep your windows shut! You want more ventilation, really, in Holland. I assure you, I should stifle in this atmosphere.”

“Come, Adolphine, do come in. . . .”

“No, really not. I’m going; make my apologies to your husband. Good-bye, Constance. Come, Carolientje.”

And, as though she were really suffocating, she hurried to the front-door with her daughter, first