"But, my dear, it was just on your account."
"Well, then I would rather go away again! I cannot bear that!" She threw herself in his arms.
"My dear! did you see what Josephine looked like?"
"Of course I did," answered Ragni, and her head peeped up again, her hat falling off, and her hair tumbled. "She will kill me some day!" and again took refuge in his arms.
"Well, well," said he, "she will not succeed in doing you any harm. But am I not to fight your battles?"
Forth she peeped again: "Not in that way! I would never have thought you were like that! It was so--so unrefined, Edward," and she took and shook him by the coat-collar.
"Listen to me," said he, quietly; "what that fellow has written about us, that is unrefined. And her silence? I thought that worse than anything he had written."
To this she answered nothing. After a pause he heard: "I am not suited for this."
He bent over her head; her hat had fallen off, but they neither of them noticed it; he whispered softly through her reddish hair; she must not give in at once, nor speak of dying or going away again. "We must take it in a more manly way than that, don't you think so too?"
"Yes, yes." Her rough head peeped out again: "But you must remember that now I am with you; you cannot behave quite as if you were alone."