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looked enviously around her. What a lot Constance must spend on her clothes; and it was not as if they were well off either, for all they had to live on was an allowance from Papa and Mamma van der Welcke, the money which Constance had inherited from her father and the little that Van der Welcke could scrape together at Brussels, as a wine- and insurance-agent. Nothing to speak of, all told: that Adolphine knew for a fact. She admired in particular a magnificent fur bolero and wondered what two kinds of fur it was made of; but she said nothing: she never praised anything in another, not his raiment, nor his intellect, nor his virtues. Even if she had had anything to gain by it, she could never have brought herself to say:

“Constance, what a pretty bolero that is!”

But, pale with envy, she kept looking at the fur as it hung over a chair; and the sight of it caused her almost physical pain, because it was not hers and she did not know how one like it ever could be hers.

Constance was rather tired. First, she had been unpacking trunks with Addie; then Karel and Cateau had come and she had talked copiously in the pleasure and excitement of seeing them. But that visiting-card of Karel’s had depressed her; and now she talked listlessly: