The Later Life Part 26

She rested her head against Louise:

"Louise!"

"What is it, Frances?"

"I haven't been nice to you.... I'm going to die."

"No, no, you're not."

"Yes, I am.... Huigje! Ottelientje! Mamma's going to die."

Otto took the children out of the room.

"Leave them with me!" she moaned. "I'm dying!..."

"No, Frances. But won't you lie down a little? Take off your things? Lie down on your bed?"

"No ... no ... I'm a little better.... I must go down...."

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yes.... Give me some ... eau-de-Cologne.... Oh, Louise, everything suddenly went black!..."

"You felt giddy, I expect. Did you take your drops to-day?"

"Yes, but they're no good, those drops. I'm much better now, Louise. Are you angry with me?..."

"No."

"For saying Otto was in love with you?"

"Oh, nonsense, Frances!"

"Yes, he is in love with you. You're mad, you two: brother and sister; I never heard of such a thing.... I'm better, Louise. Will you help me downstairs? And will you ... will you have your dinner with the children? That's sweet of you.... You see, the foreign secretary's coming and that's why Papa wants Otto and me to be at the dinner. Otherwise I don't care about that sort of thing.... I'm much better now, Louise.... Come, take me downstairs."

She stood up and Louise helped her down the stairs, tenderly.

The maids were running upstairs, downstairs and along the pa.s.sages; footmen were waiting in the hall; the house was one blaze of light. In the drawing-room, Bertha, already dressed, was speaking to Willem, the butler; the doors were open, showing the long table glittering through its flowers.

"What's the matter with Frances?" asked Bertha, seeing Frances come in slowly, looking very pale, leaning on Louise's arm.

"I'm better now, Mamma.... I thought I was dying...."

At that moment, there was a loud peal at the front-door bell.

"Who can that be?"

One of the footmen opened the door.

"Who is it?" asked Bertha, softly, from the stairs.

"It's I, Mamma!"

"Emilie!"

"Yes ... I...."

Emilie came up. She had flung down a wet waterproof in the hall and was very pale; her hair hung in disorder over her face.

"But, Emilie ... what's the matter?"

She had flown upstairs precipitately, seeing nothing; now she suddenly perceived the rooms, all open and lit up, with the long table and the flowers; and she remembered that there was a dinner-party....

"I've run away!" she said. "I'm not going back!"

"Run away!"

"Yes. Eduard struck me ... and insulted me ... insulted me.... I won't go back home.... I shall stay here!"

"Emilie! Good heavens!"

"Unless you turn me away.... Then I'll go into the streets, I don't know where ... to Leiden ... to Henri.... I'll go to Henri. Understand what I say, Mamma: I'll never go back to Eduard."

Van Naghel appeared at the door:

"What's happened, Emilie?"

"Papa, Papa, I've run away...."

"Run away...."

"From Eduard. It's a dog's life. He's a miser. He's always bullying me, reproaching me, saying that I spend too much money ... that my parents, yes, that you ... that you spend too much money! He's mad with meanness. He locks up my linen-cupboard ... because I wear too many chemises and send too many things to the wash and employ too expensive a laundress! He grudges me more than one chemise a week! He's mad ... he's gone mad! For a whole week, I put on three fresh chemises a day, to annoy him, and I threw all those chemises into his dirty-clothes-basket, to annoy him! He found them this morning! I told him that I was the mistress of my own chemises and that I should wear just as many as I pleased. Then he flew into a pa.s.sion and he struck me...."

She burst out laughing:

"I flung all my chemises at his head!" she screamed, hysterically. "And he flung them all back. The room was one vast chemise!... Oh, it's terrible.... It's a dog's life. I won't go back to him.... Papa, I needn't go back to him, need I?"

"Emilie, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

She threw herself upon her father, crushed herself against the orders on his breast:

"Oh, Papa, I am so unhappy! I can't stand any more of it: I am so unhappy!"

Marianne came in. She was looking very pretty: a delicate, fair little society-girl, in her low-necked white frock. She heard Emilie's last words, saw her pale, thin, dishevelled:

"Emilietje!... Sissy!... What is it?" she exclaimed. "Oh, that horrid man! It's that horrid man!"

Bertha shut her eyes: