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Rh distinction with envious eyes; and, however much she might boast of everything that belonged to her, that distinction, which she would never achieve, remained a torture to her vanity. It had come of itself, in the course of Van Naghel and Bertha’s life—through Papa’s patronage, through Van Naghel’s own connections and his Overijssel family, which had always played a part in the political history of the country—it had come of itself that not only had Van Naghel attained a high level in his career, but his house had become a political and also an aristocratic salon at the Hague, as though, through their respective connections, Van Naghel and Bertha, after Papa van Lowe’s death, had continued the tradition which, after the viceregal period, had prevailed in the Alexanderstraat, where Mamma was now left peacefully leading her after-life as an old woman and a widow. On the other hand, Adolphine’s house, in spite of all her wishes and endeavours, had never been anything more than an omnium-gatherum, a rubbish heap. She lacked tact and the gift of discrimination. She thought that for her too to have a busy house would give her something of Bertha’s importance and distinction; and so she paid visits right and left and had a multitude of incongruous acquaintances, all belonging to different sets: the orthodox set; the Indian set; the official set; the military set; but not, alas, the Court set nor the leaven of aristocracy which, after Papa’s death, at first used to leave a card, once a year or so, but had gradually dropped her. And so it had come of itself,