Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty—will you go on till I have reached that blessed age?"
"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.
"Precisely," said Anna.
"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."
"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to know better."
Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished again.
"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired—it concerns nobody here at all."
"Little Else?"
"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian names. We are sisters."
"I see."