“She will marry him, after all,” Paul meditated.
All around people screamed and shouted. A lantern had caught fire, and a troop of young fellows endeavored to tear it from the cord. Flaming pieces of paper were flying through the air, and the liquid was spirted in all directions.
Elsbeth put her arm in his and bent her head on his shoulder. Again that blissful thrill which he could not explain ran through him.
“There, now I am safe,” she said, in a whisper. “Come to the wood afterwards, Paul, I have so much to tell you; there we shall be undisturbed.”
And as she said this he felt quite anxious, out of pure joy.
They had come to the dancing-place. The trumpets resounded, and the dancers were spinning round and round.
“Shall we dance, too?” she asked, smiling.
“I cannot,” he answered.
“That does not matter,” she said; “for those sort of things Leo does well enough.”
His foolish dreams which he had had under the juniper-bush to-day occurred to him.