Page:Small Souls (1919).djvu/438

430 “My God! Henri! Henri! What have you done!”

Addie came up.

"Mamma!”

“Addie! Addie! My boy! My God! My God! What has Papa done!”

Mamma van Lowe dropped into a chair, sobbing.

But, at that moment, the two old aunts, sitting all alone in the second drawing-room, looked up. On those evenings, they used generally to doze, hardly recognizing the various relations, and to wait until the cakes and lemonade were handed round, going home after they had had them. But, this evening, sitting quietly in their chairs, looking quietly, with eyes askance, at the people talking and playing their cards and uttering their harsh judgments, they felt the usual peaceful calmness to be absent from Marie’s family-Sunday. There was something the matter. Something was happening, they did not know what. But it suddenly seemed as though Auntie Tine, when she saw her younger sister, Mrs. van Lowe, bursting into sobs, became very lucid, for, opening wide and clear her screwed-up eyes, she said to Auntie Rine, very loudly, with the sharp tone of a woman hard of hearing, to whom her own voice sounds soft and almost whispering:

“Rine, Rine, Marie’s crying!”

“What? Is she crying, Tine?”

“Yes, she’s crying.”

“What is she crying for?”