"Oh! let it alone! I was every bit as much to blame, and it is always so, my dear; both are to blame! Look, this is my baby. The Lord took it, and I dare say it was for the best. But now let's talk about something else. Who is that gay dog whom Albert has brought here to-night? The one closest to the stove, by the side of the tall one, whose head reaches up to the chimney?"
Olle, very much flattered by her attention, patted his wavy hair which, after the many libations, was beginning to stand up again.
"That is assistant preacher Monsson," said Lundell.
"Ugh! A clergyman! I might have known it from the cunning look in his eyes. Do you know that a clergyman came here last week? Come here, Monsson, and let me look at you!"
Olle descended from his seat where he and Ygberg had been criticizing Kant's Categorical Imperative. He was so accustomed to exciting the curiosity of the sex that he immediately felt younger; he lurched towards the lady whom he had already ogled and found charming. Twirling his moustache, he asked in an affected voice, with a bow which he had not learned at a dancing class:
"Do you really think, miss, that I look like a clergyman?"
"No, I see now that you have a moustache; your clothes are too clean for an artisan—may I see your hand—oh! you are a smith!"
Olle was deeply hurt.
"Am I so very ugly, miss?" he asked pathetically.
Marie examined him for a moment.