"No, of course not, goosie," she kissed the girl affectionately, "but I should like to see you married, in a home of your own. It would be much better for you, I am sure. I don't really approve of this one-sided life you are leading."
"But, Auntie dear, how could I marry a man who takes no interest in my work? These young men are very nice and all that, but we have absolutely nothing in common. I asked Peter Näss the other day what he thought of the Kantian philosophy, and he said he had never thought about it at all. These young men never like to talk about serious subjects and they refuse to take me seriously when I do."
"Ah, Ragna," said the elder woman, "when you have a home and children to look after, you will find that all your philosophy goes to the wall."
"But that is just what I am afraid of, why should I stifle all my higher instincts in a commonplace marriage?"
She had not told her aunt, however, what was the real matter with her. The fact was that try as she might, she could not rid herself of the memory of Prince Mirko and that moonlit crossing of the North Sea. His kiss remained imprinted on her lips and his idealized image on her heart. She mentally compared with him the young men of her acquaintance and weighing them in the balance, found them woefully wanting.
One evening, sitting alone with her in the drawing-room, young Nansen had kissed her—the effect had been electrical. Furiously rubbing her offended cheek, she had reprimanded him in such terms of withering scorn that the poor young man fled, never to call again. Afterwards she was ashamed of her outburst, and analysing her feelings, as she had come to do, was obliged to admit to herself that the cause of her resentment was not the temerity of her suitor, but the fact that he had failed to awake in her an answering thrill. She liked the young man, and her vanity would have been pleased by the marriage, for he was the best "parti" in Christiania, but her conscious womanhood revolted at a loveless union. Was the shadow of a kiss to spoil her life? In vain she reasoned with herself, the unconquerable memory remained; she felt it like an indelible mark on her.
Fru Boyesen in despair at her niece's obstinacy and foolishness, and after many fruitless attempts to bring the girl round to her point of view, finally betook herself to Ragna's old professor, Dr. Tommsen. She laid the case before him and begged him to use his influence with his wayward pupil—she would surely listen to him.
Dr. Tommsen had received Fru Boyesen in his study. He sat, in an old leather-covered armchair between the porcelain stove where a fire was burning, and his large, much belittered writing table, gazing at his visitor in good-humoured perplexity and twiddling his thumbs—a habit of his when not engaged in writing or reading. His spectacles were pushed up on his bulging forehead and his keen grey eyes peered out from under shaggy, grizzled eyebrows, which he had a habit of working up and down in a terrifying manner. His sanctum was not often invaded by ladies, and the presence of a portly dame arrayed in green silk trimmed with bugles and yellow lace and protected by a dead-leaf mantle, and the singularity of her coming to him, a bachelor of well-known eccentricity, in order that her niece should be prevailed upon to enter the bonds of matrimony, appealed to his sense of humour.
Therefore, when Fru Boyesen had finished her elaborate exposition of the case, the Doctor pursed up his lips and his eyes twinkled.
"My dear Madam," he said, "I fail to see how I can be of any assistance to you, I have so little experience in these matters."