"Well," she said, "that is what many people say. The New World may be good enough in its way, but the Old World is the Old World, when all is said and done. And you got tired of the Americans, did you?"
"Oh no," he said, "it wasn't that. But——"
He hesitated, and then he blurted out:
"I wish you'd been with us, Knutty. It would have been so different then."
"Nei, stakkar," she said. "You'll make old Knutty too conceited if you go on saying these nice things to her."
He had put down his plate of multebaer, and was now fiddling nervously with a Swedish knife that Knutty had given him. Knutty glanced at him with her sly little old eyes. She knew she was in for confidences if she conducted herself with discretion.
"Give it to me," she said, holding out her hand for the knife. "This is the way it opens—so—and then you stick it through the case—so—and then it's ready to stick anybody you don't like—so—in true Swedish fashion, with which I have great sympathy—there it is!"
The boy went on fiddling with the knife, and then he took his cap off and fiddled with that.
"Du milde Himmel!" thought Knutty. "These icebergs! Why do I ever put up with them?"
"Knutty," the boy began nervously, "I want so dreadfully to ask you something—about—mother. Was she—very unhappy—do you think? I can't get out of my head what Mrs Stanhope said. I tried to forget it—but——"