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Rh Van Vreeswijck came to dinner once every two or three weeks, generally alone, or perhaps, as Paul was still abroad, she would ask Marianne van Naghel, of whom she was very fond. It would be one of those cosy, daintily-arranged little dinners which she knew so well how to give; and that was the extent of her social doings.

Thus she lived in herself and in her house. The rooms in which she sat always reflected herself, a woman of elegant and refined taste, even though she was not exactly artistic; and those rooms displayed in particular the inhabited, sociable, homelike appearance that comes from the presence of a woman who is much indoors and finds solace in her home. And round about her the lines and colours of her furniture and flowers, her knicknacks and fancy-work all made an atmosphere of soft fragrance peculiarly her own, with something very personal, something delicate and intimate: a soft dreaminess as of really very small, simple femininity, without one really artistic object anywhere, without a single water-colour or drawing or fashionable novel; and yet with nothing in colour or form or line that could offend the eye of an artist: on the contrary, everything blending into a perfect harmony of small material things with inner personal things that likewise had no greatness. . ..

One day, when Truitje brought her some circulars, letters and bills from the letter-box, Constance’ eye fell upon a newspaper in a wrapper; and she opened it. She read the title of the little sheet: the