She shut herself up; she saw little of her children; she told her friends that she was ill. She was at home to no visitors. She guessed intuitively that people in their circles were speaking of Quaerts and herself. Life hung dull about her in a closely-woven web of tiresome, tedious meshes; and she remained motionless in her corner, to avoid entangling herself in those meshes. Once Jules forced his way to her; he went upstairs, in spite of Greta’s protests; he sought her in the little boudoir and, not finding her, went resolutely to her bedroom. He knocked without receiving a reply, but entered nevertheless. The room was half in darkness, for she kept the blinds lowered; in the shadow of the canopy which rose above the bedstead, with its hangings of old-blue brocade, Cecile lay sleeping. Her tea-gown was open over her breast; the train trailed from the bed and lay creased over the carpet; her hair spread loosely over the pillows; one of her hands was clutching nervously at the tulle bed-curtains.

“Auntie!” cried Jules. “Auntie!”

He shook her by the arm; and she woke heavily, with heavy, blue-girt eyes. She did not recognize him at first and thought that he was little Dolf.

“It’s me, Auntie; Jules....”

She knew him now, asked how he came there, what was the matter and if he did not know that she was ill?

“I knew, but I wanted to speak to you. I came to speak to you about ... him....”

“Him?”

“About Taco. He asked me to tell you. He couldn’t write to you, he said. He is going on a long journey with his friend from Brussels; he will be away a long time and he would like ... he would like to take leave of you.”

“To take leave?”

“Yes; and he told me to ask you if he might see you once more?”

She had half-raised herself and was looking at Jules with a vacant air. In an instant the memory ran through her brain of the long look which Jules had directed on her so strangely when she saw Quaerts for the first time and spoke to him coolly and distantly:

“Have you many relations in The Hague?... You have no occupation, I believe?... Sport?... Oh!...”

Then came the memory of Jules playing the piano, of Rubinstein’s Romance, of the ecstasy of his fantasia: the glittering rainbows and the souls turning to angels.

“To take leave?” she repeated.

Jules nodded:

“Yes, Auntie, he is going away for ever so long.”

He could have shed tears himself and there were tears in his voice, but he would not give way and his eyes merely grew moist.

“He told me to ask you,” he repeated, with difficulty.

“If he can come and take leave?”

“Yes, Auntie.”

She made no reply, but lay staring before her. An emptiness began to stretch before her, in endless vistas. It was a shadowy image of their evening of rapture, but no light beamed out of the shadow.

“Emptiness!” she muttered through her closed lips.

“What, Auntie?”

She would have liked to ask Jules whether he was still, as formerly, afraid of the emptiness within himself; but a gentleness of pity, a soft feeling, a sweetening of the bitterness which filled her being, stayed her.

“To take leave?” she repeated, with a smile of melancholy; and the big tears fell heavily, drop by drop, upon her fingers wrung together.

“Yes, Auntie....”

He could no longer restrain himself: a single sob convulsed his throat, but he gave a cough to conceal it. Cecile threw her arm round his neck:

“You are very fond of ... Taco, are you not?” she asked; and it struck her that this was the first time that she had pronounced the name, for she had never called Quaerts by it: she had never called him by any name.

He did not answer at first, but nestled in her arm, in her embrace, and began to cry:

“Yes, I can’t tell you how fond I am of him,” he said.

“I know,” she said; and she thought of the rainbows and the angels: he had played as out of her own soul.

“May he come?” asked Jules, loyally remembering his instructions.

“Yes.”

“He asks if he might come this evening?”

“Very well.”

“Auntie, he is going away, because of ... because of ...”

“Because of what, Jules?”

“Because of you: because you don’t like him and will not marry him! Mamma says so....”

She made no reply; she lay sobbing, with her head against Jules’ head.

“Is it true, Auntie? No, it is not true, is it?...”

“No.”

“Why then?”

She raised herself suddenly, conquering herself, and looked at him fixedly:

“He is going away because he must, Jules. I cannot tell you why. But what he does is right. All that he does is right.”

The boy looked at her, motionless, with large wet eyes, full of astonishment:

“Is right?” he repeated.

“Yes. He is better than any one of us. If you go on loving him, Jules, it will bring you happiness, even if ... if you never see him again.”

“Do you think so?” he asked. “Does he bring happiness? Even in that case?...”

“Even in that case.”

She listened to her own words as she spoke: it was to her as if another were speaking, another who consoled not only Jules but herself as well and who would perhaps give her the strength to take leave of Taco in the manner which would be best, without despair.