Svend bore it, ashamed, and crouched like a dog that gets a blow. But when he slunk towards the door, she took pity on him and so kissed him for nothing.
So the winter passed away.
But as the days lengthened and brightened through February and March, all sorts of rumors, which had lain quiet, hatching in the darkness of winter, began to rustle their wings, and a new story about Consul With flew blustering from house to house.
The Consul resorted to his usual expedient; he sailed for London on business. And one day the pleasant woman came to Elsie with an altogether new face, in which there was not the least trace of a smile left, and announced curtly and decidedly, that the Consul had gone away now for a year at least, and Elsie had no further business in the house, but must bundle herself off and not take a thing with her.
Loppen was no longer the same girl as when she was cast out of Madam Speckbom’s. She got up and roundly abused the pleasant woman, and there ensued a short-lived brawl, which ended by the woman swearing that Loppen should be out of the house before the sun went down.
“Gladly—very gladly, indeed,” answered Elsie; that had long been her intention; she was sick of it all. And when Svend just then came up the stairs, she cried out, with flashing eyes: “Now, I will go with you, Svend.”
But Svend seemed more puzzled than happy, and he whispered despondently:
“I haven’t a shilling left.”
Then Loppen laughed; she laughed so it rang through the house, up the stairs and down the stairs; but Svend was almost frightened.
And beaming, as if it was the grandest triumph in the world, she took his arm and walked past the woman, who stood and laughed at them in disdain.