"What did you say to him? What did he talk to you about?" chimed in Ingeborg.
"Oh, about the weather and the gulls and the moon—anything."
"I don't call that very much," said Lotte, much disappointed. "I should have thought you would talk about wars and court-balls, and things like that."
"Oh, dear, no,—one doesn't talk about those things, it would seem affected and silly."
"And didn't he make love to you? They always do in stories," queried Lotte, then seeing her sister blush. "I believe he did—and you're too mean to tell. What did you talk about anyway, that makes you blush like that?" she added with a child's terrible perspicacity.
"I'm blushing at your curiosity, that's what I'm blushing at," returned Ragna, angry at having betrayed herself. "And if you went to the Sisters they'd tell you it was ill-bred to ask so many questions and pry into what isn't your business!" Afraid of betraying herself further she got up and left them.
The three girls had been sitting on a rock, not far from the house, where they had long been accustomed to take their work on summer afternoons. The younger girls stared at each other thunderstruck, as Ragna walked away.
"Well," said Lotte, "it's rude to ask a civil question, and it's all right to get up and go off in a temper. What is the matter with her anyway? I'm sure I wish the old Prince had never spoken to her at all, it has turned her head, being taken notice of, that's what it is!"
Ingeborg said nothing; she merely bit off her thread reflectively as she followed Ragna's retreating figure with her eyes. Less impulsive than Lotte, and endowed with a finer intuition, she felt that if Ragna were keeping something from them it would be useless to try and drag it out of her, and not only that, she realized as Lotte did not, that each of us has his or her own little "Secret Garden," of memory and fancy, of which no hand, however intimate, may open the gate. But vaguely conscious of this, herself, she felt how useless it would be to explain it to Lotte, whose frank curiosity knew no such restraint.
Lotte stitched on viciously, indignant at the snub she had received, and giving vent to her feelings in intermittent monologue.