"Oh, Solvei!" cried the older woman suddenly. "Smile again! Laugh again! I can't bear it! It's as though the sun had died! It's as though the moon had gone! If you are angry and leave me, I shall be left all alone again with just the fog and the sea! I am a brute, and I know it! But oh, if you will only just smile again! Even just once, I mean! Oh, my poor dear little girl," she implored her. "Oh, my poor dear touchy little blonde girl!"
"I am not a 'poor—poor little blonde girl,'" asserted Solvei with some spirit. "I am indeed as I said, very young, very strong. And very laughing," she insisted without even the remotest flicker of a smile.
"Are you young enough and strong enough and laughing enough to come over here and sit on my bed?" rallied Mrs. Tome Gallien.
"I am young enough and strong enough 144and laughing enough to do anything!" said Solvei Kjelland.
Stiff and stern as a ramrod she went over and sat on the side of the Sick Woman's bed.
Without an atom of self-consciousness or embarrassment both women began all over again to study each other's faces.
"Could I put my hand on your yellow hair?" asked Mrs. Gallien at last quite surprisingly.
"You could put your hand on my yellow hair," said Solvei.
"If I should apologize fairly decently for existing at all," experimented Mrs. Tome Gallien a little further, "would you be willing to kiss now?
"I should never be willing," sighed Solvei, "to kiss any lips that tasted of mockerings."