With this exception it was not certain what the girls discussed, they had agreed to pretend that everything that was said about them was true, a roguish Freemasonry kept this joke going.
One of those who teased them the most was Consul Engel. He had soon made his peace with the Staff, having sent his apologies through his daughter. Besides this, he had presented Tora with a nest of Japanese boxes, in the smallest of which was a charming pin. In order to make everything smooth again, he gave a "Reconciliation Dinner," to which Milla invited several of her friends. An enormous doll had been sent by grande vitesse, which he set up on the table and ceremoniously introduced to the four girls. It was magnificent; Tinka had put on her stoutest dress; Tora, who was in a wild mood, sat next to Milla. She chattered without stopping for a moment, so that Milla had to pinch her under the table to make her be silent, at which Tora laughed as though she were mad. Nora ran to the piano in the middle of dessert, to sing a song which the Consul had never heard. He declared afterwards that he had never amused himself more innocently. His only notion of talking to them was to tease them, his favourite theme was the Society. They laughed at his jokes and kept them up, but they would not give in; for women are used to having the things they are fond of held up to contempt. The Society was a new thing in their lives, soon it became something more. But to show this we must return to one who is waiting for us. Anna Rogne did not come to school that Monday; Milla came up to muster with her heart full of self-reproach. Directly after school she drove round to see her, but Anna was ill; her aunts came out smiling and told her that she could not be disturbed. The next day Milla came again. She asked if she might not at least be allowed to see the invalid. Anna and she had begun to read Fabiola together; might she not read aloud to her? "Little Anna hoped she would excuse her," they said smiling, and Milla went away. Anna was away three weeks, and Milla called two or three times more, but did not see her. After that she gave up the attempt.
Anna was not ill, she told her aunts openly what was the matter; she had been deceived and slighted--nay, more than that, she had been robbed. What she meant by this last she would not explain for a long time; she could not. She must be quite alone. They could hear her the whole day walking about in the attic, and sometimes in the night as well; they were terribly frightened, but did as she wished. They always told her when they were going to have prayers, but she would never join them; when she noticed their increasing astonishment and anxiety, she at last told them that that had been her greatest loss; for all that she valued most she had shared with Milla. Not to speak of their mutual profession, there was not a prayer, not a hymn, not a favourite passage of Scripture which had not been exchanged between her and her friend, as lovers exchange their betrothal rings, make presents to each other, and kiss each other's portraits.
She could no longer bear to see, to be present, to hear or think any more about the subject.
She did not cry, at all events not when any one saw her; little Anna had a strong will. She looked on what had happened as one foe looks at another. Her feelings did not take the form of pain, but of anger. She hated the others, she pitied herself. The misapprehension she had laboured under, up to the last hour of that last day when she stood before Milla's door and heard the others laughing inside--could anything more absurd be imagined! What had she not, in utmost seriousness, shared with a girl like that, and the inward strength with which she had credited her; there were no bounds to her sense of shame when she thought of it, and yet she was obliged to think of it. She forced herself to confess it to her aunts, she forced herself to probe down into the most remote causes; it became an employment which brought others in its train. She roused herself, began to stir about, to take long lonely walks, and at last to read. At the end of three weeks she returned to school, rather paler than usual and a little thinner, but in all other respects, apparently, just as before. She did not take her old place, but was still friendly with every one, even with Milla. Milla made no further attempts at explanation, though it was not perhaps without her knowledge that Tora did so. Anna listened to her, and asked for a little yellow cotton; she would return it the next day. She attended all the meetings of the Society most regularly; it was evident that it interested her, but she took no active part.
Just before Christmas Rendalen was invited, on a suggestion of Nora, to tell them something about Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts." He refused this, but asked leave to speak to them a little on hereditary responsibility; he considered that in this, when it had been thoroughly worked out and realised, were contained several new moral laws--indeed, that a revolution would be caused by it in many things.
There was great eagerness over this; they looked forward to a quiet and interesting account, but were given a wild though stirring lecture. The girls were not less frightened by Rendalen's personal agitation than by his words. At the end he shouted out that those who passed on an hereditary disease to their children--those, for example, who had frequent insanity in their families, and nevertheless, married; those who, though weakened by debauchery, brought children into the world; those who, for the sake of money, married cripples or unhealthy people and endowed their children with these afflictions--were worse than the greatest scoundrels, worse than thieves, forgers, robbers, murderers; that he would maintain.
Something must have happened: for several days Fru Rendalen had gone about with red eyes, and he himself had been away, probably to Christiania. Anna came forward and thanked him for his lecture in her own prétentieuse manner; after he had gone, she said it was the best she had heard. Only one person agreed with her, and that was Miss Hall; the others said nothing, there was a painful silence. At last some one said that the lecture appeared to her to be terribly violent. Little Anna replied that people must be roused, everything was made into an amusement. There was too much of that in the Society itself. This caused still greater discord; Nora was annoyed, and asked if Anna would not in that case do something to help it. Anna coloured, but to every one's astonishment she replied: "Yes, she would try."
She disappeared from school for several days; but she announced that she would give a lecture at the next meeting. She wished that Rendalen, Fru Rendalen, and Karl Vangen should hear it; this was certainly not hiding her light under a bushel, her companions thought. Of course the invited guests came.
When little Anna arrived she looked overstrung, her hands trembled as her thin fingers turned the pages of her manuscript and arranged the lights on the tribune. Her voice and delivery were measured, sometimes almost sharp; she did not often raise her large eyes, but when she did so it was with a significance which was most irritating. She read her lecture--the opening was especially pointed: