Page:Small Souls (1919).djvu/305

Rh “Yes, a boy; but not by Van der Welcke.”

“The father’s an Italian, I hear.”

“Yes, an Italian diplomatist.”

In this way the fire continued, brisk, crackling, fiercer and fiercer, until it went off like a brilliant and acrid fire-work:

“Well, I don’t think the family will like that so very much!”

“You need only look at Van Naghel’s face. . .”

“Or at the Van Saetzemas’.”

“Why don’t they keep her in the background?”

“Yes. What did she want to come back for at all?”

“I call it an impertinence.”

“She was always intriguing as a young girl.”

“That marriage with old De Staffelaer. . . .”

“And what is she ferreting round for now?”

“Yes, what on earth is she ferreting round for in the Hague?”

And they ferreted round for what she was ferreting round for in the Hague. They ferreted very deep, very far, after the brilliant cross-fire; they dug up, among themselves, all the sand of their suspicions and flung it about one another’s ears:

“They had a very expensive establishment abroad and were unable to keep it going any longer.”

“She wants to be near her mother because she’s afraid that, when the mother dies, there will be trouble about the will.”

“It was he who wanted to come back, for the sake of an old mistress of his.”