"Wonderfully bright eyes that girl has, to be sure."

I glanced across at Fruen. Her eyes were blazing, her cheeks flushed, as she moved to leave the room. But in the doorway she turned, and now her face was pale. She seemed to have formed her resolution already.

Speaking over her shoulder, she said to her husband:

"I shouldn't be surprised if Ragnhild's eyes were a little too bright."

"Eh?" says the Captain, in surprise.

"Yes," says Fruen, with a slight laugh, nodding over towards the table where we sat. "She's getting a little too friendly with the men out here."

Silence.

"So perhaps she'd better go," Fruen went on.

It was incomparable audacity on Fruen's part, of course, to say such a thing to our face, but we could not protest; we saw she was only using us to serve her need.

When we got outside, Nils said angrily:

"I'm not sure but I'd better go back and say a word or two myself about that."

But I dissuaded him, saying it was not worth troubling about.

A few days pa.s.sed. Again the Captain found an opportunity of paying barefaced compliments to Ragnhild: "... with a figure like yours," he said.

And the tone of everything about the house now--badly changed from of old. Gone down, grown poorer year by year, no doubt, drunken guests doing their share to help, and idleness and indifference and childlessness for the rest.

In the evening, Ragnhild came to me and told me she was given notice; Fruen had made some reference to me, and that was all.

Once more a piece of underhand work. Fruen knew well I should not be long on the place; why not make me the scapegoat? She was determined to upset her husband's calculations, that was the matter.

Ragnhild, by the way, took it to heart a good deal, and sobbed and dabbed her eyes. But after a while she comforted herself with the thought that, as soon as I was gone, Fruen would take back her dismissal and let her stay. I, for my part, was inwardly sure that Fruen would do nothing of the kind.

Yes, the Captain and Elisabet might be content: the troublesome parlour-maid was to be sent packing, surely enough.

But who was to know? I might be out in my reckoning after all. New happenings set me questioning anew; ay, forced me to alter my judgment once again. 'Tis a sorely difficult thing to judge the truth of humankind.

I learned now, beyond doubt, that Fru Falkenberg was truly and honestly jealous of her husband; not merely pretending to be, as so by way of covering her own devious ways. Far, indeed, from any pretence here.

True, she did not really believe for a moment that he was interested in her maid. But it suited her purpose to pretend she did; in her extremity, she would use any means that came to hand. She had blushed during that scene in the kitchen; yes, indeed, but that was a sudden and natural indignation at her husband's ill-chosen words, nothing more.

But she had no objections to her husband's imagining she was jealous of the girl. This was just what she wanted. Her meaning was clear enough.

I'm jealous again, yes; you can see it's all the same as before with me: here I am! Fru Falkenberg was better than I had thought. For many years now the pair had slipped farther and farther from each other through indifference, partly perhaps towards the last, in defiance; now she would take the first step and show that she cared for him still. That was it, yes. But, in face of the one she feared most of all, she would not show her jealousy for worlds--and that was Elisabet, this dangerous friend of hers who was so many years younger than herself.

Yes, that was the way of it.

And the Captain? Was he moved at all to see his wife flush at his words to her maid? Maybe a shadow of memory from the old days, a tingle of wonder, a gladness. But he said no word. Maybe he was grown prouder and more obstinate with the years that had pa.s.sed. It might well seem so from his looks.

Then it was there came the happenings I spoke of.

III

Fru Falkenberg had been playing with her husband now for some little time. She affected indifference to his indifference, and consoled herself with the casual attentions of men staying in the house. Now one and now another of them left, but stout Captain Bror and the lady with the shawl stayed on, and La.s.sen, the young engineer, stayed too. Captain Falkenberg looked on as if to say: "Well and good, stay on by all means, my dear fellow, as long as you please." And it made no impression on him when his wife said "Du" to La.s.sen and called him Hugo. "Hugo!" she would call, standing on the steps, looking out. And the Captain would volunteer carelessly: "Hugo's just gone down the road."

One day I heard him answer her with a bitter smile and a wave of his hand towards the lilacs: "Little King Hugo is waiting for you in his kingdom." I saw her start; then she laughed awkwardly to cover her confusion, and went down in search of La.s.sen.

At last she had managed to wring some expression of feeling out of him.

She would try it again.

This was on a Sunday.

Later in the day Fruen was strangely restless; she said a few kindly words to me, and mentioned that both Nils and I had managed our work very well.

"Lars has been to the post office today," she said, "to fetch a letter for me. It's one I particularly want. Would you mind going up to his place and bringing it down for me?"

I said I would with pleasure.

"Lars won't be home again till about eleven. So you need not start for a long time yet."

Very good.

"And when you get back, just give the letter to Ragnhild."

It was the first time Fru Falkenberg had spoken to me during my present stay at vreb; it was something so new, I went up afterwards to my bedroom and sat there by myself, feeling as if something had really happened. I thought over one or two things a little as well. It was simply foolishness, I told myself to go on playing the stranger here and pretending n.o.body knew. And a full beard was a nuisance in the hot weather; moreover, it was grey, and made me look ever so old. So I set to and shaved it off.

About ten o'clock I started out towards the clearing. Lars was not back.

I stayed there a while with Emma, and presently he came in. I took the letter and went straight home. It was close on midnight.

Ragnhild was nowhere to be seen, and the other maids had gone to bed. I glanced in at the shrubbery. There sat Captain Falkenberg and Elisabet, talking together at the round stone table; they took no notice of me.

There was a light in Fruen's bedroom upstairs. And suddenly it occurred to me that to-night I looked as I had done six years before, clean-shaven as then. I took the letter out of my pocket and went in the main entrance to give it to Fruen myself.

At the top of the stairs Ragnhild comes slipping noiselessly towards me and takes the letter. She is evidently excited. I can feel the heat of her breath as she points along the pa.s.sage. There is a sound of voices from the far end.

It looked as if she had taken up her post here on guard, or had been set there by some one to watch; however, it was no business of mine. And when she whispered: "Don't say a word; go down again quietly!" I obeyed, and went to my room.

My window was open. I could hear the couple down among the bushes: they were drinking wine. And there was still light upstairs in Fruen's room.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed; then the light went out.

A moment later I heard some one hurrying up the stairs in the house, and looked down involuntarily to see if it was the Captain. But the Captain was sitting as before.

Now came the same steps down the stairs again, and, a little after, others. I kept watch on the main entrance. First comes Ragnhild, flying as if for her life over towards the servants' quarters; then comes Fru Falkenberg with her hair down, and the letter in her hand showing white in the gloom. After her comes the engineer. The pair of them move down towards the high road.

Ragnhild comes rushing in to me and flings herself on a chair, all out of breath and bursting with news. Such things had happened this evening, she whispered. Shut the window! Fruen and that engineer fellow--never a thought of being careful--'twas as near as ever could be but they'd have done it. He was holding on to her when Ragnhild went in with the letter.

Ugh! Up in Fruen's room, with the lamp blown out.