Page:Small Souls (1919).djvu/84

76 atmosphere of distinction, of importance, which she had not known for many years past, but to which she yet felt herself drawn through the innate, instinctive vanity which she imagined was dead in her.

Constance was happy, though she still had a headache. Uncle Ruyvenaer was fussy but gay, because he was winning, with Gerrit for his partner. Bertha and Constance, their thoughts both far from the cards, went on talking, played badly. Bertha was almost entirely grey, greyer even than Mamma van Lowe. She had a rather ceremonious face and resembled her father: she had his hard, stiff features, his hard, dark eyes, his thin lips. Her eyes were always blinking, as though she had a difficulty in seeing. And in her manner of talking there was something abstracted, as though she were always thinking of something else. She was well-dressed, simply, in good taste.

“I think it so nice that your house is a sort of replica of our old house, when we were children,” said Constance.

“Yes,” said Bertha. “What are trumps?”

“You went diamonds yourself,” said Gerrit, the cavalry-captain, tall, broad-chested and fair. “Attend to your game, Sis.”

“And you have a very busy home, I suppose, Bertha?”

“Yes,” said Bertha, “very busy.”

And she played the wrong card.

“I have known all that bustle myself,” said Constance. “It was like that in Rome, terribly busy: