"Yes, but it's a—it's a Desert Island, you know!" persisted the Young Doctor.
"So-o?" brightened Solvei. "And will there then be camels? N-o?" With a soft sigh of regret her whole personality seemed to fade for a moment into the indeterminate blur and buzz of crossed telephone wires. Then clear as a bell her voice rang out again. 121"And have you seen the little sad lady once more?" she asked.
"Why she's here in my office now," said the Young Doctor. "She has to come almost every day."
"So?" mused the Norse girl. "And will it take the long time perhaps to mend the little pain in the bone?"
"I certainly hope so!" laughed the Young Doctor. And for the first time since she had heard it there was no irony in the laugh but sheer boyish happiness.
"You do not seem quite to get the ideas of this little trip that I should make," she reproached him briskly. "It is not just that I go! But that I stay! It is not just for the once it would seem but for the all time that this lady so desires me! The ticket that she so kindly sends is but one-sided. It does not return."
"Ticket?" exclaimed the Young Doctor. "Why, this is preposterous! You don't really mean it, surely? There's nothing that can make you go, you know!"
"So?" said Solvei. "Did I not make the dare to her? Should I not pay? Is it not 122then as you say? I have drawn the fire!" Across the astonishing gravity of her tone a most joyous laugh broke suddenly. "Your words are of such a mixedness," she laughed. "Drawn? Drawn? Is it not rather as the strong banks would say, Miss Solvei Kjelland by one lady from the South has been withdrawn from the circulations? But I adore this America!" she confided blithely. "Always around every corner there is something that you did not first expect when you curled that corner."
"Yes, I know," admitted the Young Doctor. "But what about all this Montessori study and everything? Are you going to chuck it? And the little brother? The little lad who isn't?" he asked with real regret.
"It will all keep," said Solvei. "It is only what is, it would seem, that should pass."