Page:Small Souls (1919).djvu/73

Rh outpouring; but she suddenly felt that this was out of tune too. She felt that, after all, she had not seen her brother for twenty years, not since the day of her marriage to De Staffelaer, and that they had become as utter strangers to each other. She felt that she did not know Cateau at all. And so, though Karel and Cateau were her brother and sister, they were also strangers. But that was just what she did not want: she wanted to win them all, the whole family; to feel that they were all warm-hearted and indulgent towards her. . . . And she spoke of Mamma, of the Sunday evenings, of Mamma’s mania for the family, which she herself now felt so strongly, intensified as it had been in those lonely, joyless Brussels years. She asked their advice about taking a house at the Hague.

“The best thing you can do is to consult an estate-agent,” said Karel. “There’s one close by; he’ll know about all the houses to let.”

“It will be difficult to find the right thing,” said Constance. “We had a pretty flat at Brussels; and I really prefer a flat to a house. But there aren’t any in Holland.”

“Oh, Con-stance!” said Cateau, round-eyed. “Don’t you find a flat ve-ry stuff-y?”

“Not at all; and I love to have everything on one floor. I don’t care for maids running up and down the stairs.”

“Yes, but the place must be kept clean.”

“Well, it was. . . . Only, in a flat, abroad, the bell doesn’t keep ringing as it does at one’s