The Later Life

as working hard at the grammar-school. Without his boy, he seemed at once to have nothing to do, no object in life; he could see no reason for his existence. He would smoke endl

eswijck continued his visits regularly, appreciating the cosy little dinners. Van der Welcke generally felt lonely and stranded, found his own company more

odgy, boring life. To rush along the smooth roads in your car, to let her rip: tock, tock, tock, tock, tock-tock-tock-tock! Ha!... Ha!... That would be grand! Suppose his father were to make him a present of a car.... Ha!... Tock-tock-tock-tock!... And, as he spurted along, he suggested to himself the frantic orgy of speed of a puffing

an Lowe, in his day, had kicked him upstairs step by step!... Van der Welcke was still furious when he thought of the fellow, with his smooth face and his namby-pamby speeches. He hadn't been able to control himself that time: his wife, at any rate, was his wife; his wife was Baroness van der Welcke; and he couldn't stand it, that they should insult his wife and before his face too; and, if Paul had not prevented him, he would have struck the snobbish ass in the face, thrashed him, thrashed him, thrashed him! His blood still boiled at the thought of it.... Well, there it was! Paul had held him back ... but still, he would have liked to challenge the fellow, to have fought a duel with him!... He grinned-pedalling like mad, bending over like a record-breaker at the last lap of a bicycle-race-he grinned now when he thought of the despair of the whole family, because their revered brother-in-law Van Naghel, "his excellency," whom they all looked up to with such reverence, might have to fight a duel with a brother-in-law who was already viewed with sufficient disfavour at the Hague!... Well, it hadn't come off. They had all interfered; but it wasn't for that reason, but because dear old Mamma van Lowe had taken to her bed-and also for Addie's sake-that he had not insisted on the duel. Yes, those Dutchmen: they never wanted to fight if they could help it! He, Van der Welcke, would have liked to fight, though Van Naghel had been a thousand times his brother-in-law, a thousand times colonial secretary. And it wasn't only that the whole family had thought the very idea of a duel so dreadful; but his wise son had interfered, had taken up a very severe attitude to his father, had reproached him because he-still "a young man," as Addie put it in his amusing way-wanted to insult and strike a man of Unc

extraordinary

mother, driven out of her senses, with every nerve on edge after all that she had had to endure that Sunday: his mother the boy had not been able to restrain; a woman is always more difficult to ma

l; I'm going away;

d Mamma van Lowe; they all thought the change might even do her good; and she continued pretty sensible. She wrote to her mother, to Addie; she wrote to Truitje, impressing upon her to look after the house well and after the master and Master Addie and to see that everything was going on all right when her mistress returned. And this sensible, housewifely letter had done more than anything to reassure Mamma van Lowe and the two of them; and now they didn't grudge Constance, Mamma, her trip, for once in a way. But it was an expensive amusement. Constance, it was true, had taken some money of her own with her;

habilitate" themselves, as Constance called it, in Hague society and now that they had failed utterly through that scene with Van Naghel, things were stodgier than ever ... with no one to come and see them but Van Vreeswijck, with no outside interests whatever. It was his fault, his fault, his wife kept reproaching him in their scenes, almost with enjoyment, revelling in her revenge, because he, not long ago, had reproached her that it was her fault, her fault that they were buried away there, "cursing their luck in the Kerkhoflaan." And he was sorry too because of Marianne: she used to come and dine once in a way; when Van Vreeswijck was coming, Constance would ask either Paul or Marianne, to make four; and, now that he had insulted her father, she wouldn't come again, they were on unfriendly terms not only with the pa

t did it really matter? What did it matter? No, really nothing mattered; really, the whole world was a sickening, stodgy business, rottenly managed.... Oh, if he could only have bought a motor! The longing was so intense, so viole

car: Ottocar in a motor-c

car!-in a mad frenzy, delighting in the sheer speed of his ride, which made people turn

just as Addie was starti

were staying at the Witte after a

cried Van der Welcke. "Ottocar-in a motor-car!

ite red in

or-car! You see, I've got to have my fun by

aying, Father,

t's a song: Ottocar

o meet Mamma. Good-b

oy.... Come her

he matter

n.... Tell me, Addie, you'll always be your father's chum, won't you?...

makes you so sen

l ... but, my dear boy, I'm

t you find mor

d you have me do?... O

car

car! Like

Welcke burst

ne!" he bellowed,

, you'r

derful sands.... Oh, how I wish I were Ottocar!..

you've had a jol

y head full of all sorts

ednesday afternoon,

A long ride? To-m

ainly, a l

own Addie! My

as a child, caught

me give you

Father, for I must reall

himself neatly. He did all this with much fuss and rushing about, as though his toilet was a most important affair. Then he went downstairs. The table was laid. It was nearly seven. Constance would be t

a motor-car; bu