He did not help her to collect them. He stared in front of him with an angry look.
"There--now you've got them again," said the girl, who had grown quite red with stooping so busily. She blew off the dust and pressed them under his arm again.
"I don't want them." He let them fall again.
"Hm, you're a nice fellow. What can you be thinking of?--those expensive books." She felt really quite angry with him. "Don't you know that they cost money?"
"Pooh!" He made a gesture as if to say, what did that matter? "Then some new ones will be bought."
"Even if your father has sufficient money," she said, firing up, "it's still not right of you to treat these good books like that."
He did not say a word to that, but took them up and fastened the strap round them again. They stood together, both feeling embarrassed. She glanced sideways at him: how he had changed. And he felt vexed that he had got into a passion: what would she think of him now?
"I shall have to go now," she said all at once, "or I shan't even get my dinner eaten ugh, how hungry I am!" She put her hand on her stomach. "How good it'll taste! Mother has potatoes in their jackets and herrings to-day."
"I shall go too." Suiting his step to hers he trotted beside her as she tripped hastily along.
She got quite red: what would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with the potatoes in their jackets.