And, fascinated by her beauty and the strange things he had seen and heard and the deep silence of the room, he forgot that the seal of the old room was broken and wished to play the game as vividly as possible.
He drew the second of the two big chairs across to the window and made her sit down and sat himself beside her:
“Now you are not my mother,” he said. “You are my young bride. I have brought you into the sanctuary to-day and now I will initiate you into the mysteries.”
Fru Adelheid turned very pale and Finn took her hand penitently:
“Have I hurt you, mother?”
She shook her head and forced herself to smile.
Then he walked into the room again and rejoiced at all this and talked about it. But she remained sitting with knitted brow.
She was heavy at heart, because it seemed to her, all at once, that she was not his mother, as they sat talking here in the secret chamber of the house. The old days came in their great might; and their strong memories and impressive words drowned the bells which had rung her into another world.
It was the echo here, in the old room, of Cordt’s words and of his love ... of the strong faith and great happiness of the race which had sprouted in the good mould of tradition and produced flower after flower in the times that passed.
Fru Adelheid thought—for a moment—that it would have been well had things happened as Cordt wished.