"What's the matter?
"Well--yesterday I liked you better." Then she gives him her hand with a "good-morning," and trips down the stairs in front of him, strewing the flour about for fun as she goes.
When they get to the door of the partition that Martin called his office, she pulls a mysterious face and raises her hand silently as if to lay a ghost.
Then after a moment she asks: "I say, what has he got in there!"
"I don't know."
"Mayn't you go in either?"
"No."
"Thank goodness! Then I am not the only one who's kept in the dark. In there he sits, and every stranger is allowed to go in to him, only not I. If I want him, I have to ring.--Say yourself whether that's nice of him? Surely I am no longer such a child that he should--well, I won't say anything,--one oughtn't to speak ill of one's husband--but you are his own brother--do put in a good word for me, so that he tells me what is in there. For I am dying to know."
"Do you suppose he has told me?"
"Well, then we must comfort each other. Come along."--And in one jump she flies up the three steps leading to the entrance.