"You are very plain," she said, "but you look nice."
"Oh, dear lady, if you only knew how you are hurting me! I have never yet found a woman ready to love me, and yet I have met so many who found happiness although they were plainer than I am. But woman is a cursed riddle, which nobody can solve; I detest her."
"That's right, Olle," came a voice from the chimney, where Ygberg's head was; "that's all right."
Olle was going back to the stove, but he had touched on a topic which interested Marie too much to allow it to drop; he had played on a string the sound of which she knew. She sat down by his side and soon they were deep in a long-winded and grave discussion—on love and women.
Rehnhjelm, who during the whole evening had been more quiet and restrained than usual, and of whom nobody could make anything, suddenly revived and was now sitting in the corner of the sofa near Falk. Obviously something was troubling him, something which he could not make up his mind to mention. He seized his beer-glass, rapped on the table as if he wanted to make a speech, and when those nearest to him looked up ready to listen to him, he said in a tremulous and indifferent voice:
"Gentlemen, you think I am a beast, I know; Falk, I know you think me a fool, but you shall see, friends—the devil take me, you shall see!"
He raised his voice and put his beer-glass down with such determination that it broke in pieces, after which he sank back on the sofa and fell asleep.
This scene, although not an uncommon one, had attracted Marie's attention. She dropped the conversation with Olle, who, moreover, had begun to stray from the purely abstract point of the question and rose.
"Oh! what a pretty boy!" she exclaimed. "How does he come to be with you? Poor little chap! How sleepy he is! I hadn't seen him before."
She pushed a cushion under his head and covered him with a shawl.