Presently the seed of a corn-flower struck the tip of her nose, and again the cane was lifted; but Dora’s housekeeping experiences were too absorbingly interesting, and the blue eyes could not resist their fascination.
“Cousin Inga,” said Arnfinn, and this time with as near an approach to earnestness as he was capable of at that moment, “I do believe that Strand is in love with Augusta.”
Inga dropped the book, and sent him what was meant to be a glance of severe rebuke, and then said, in her own amusingly emphatic way:
“I do wish you wouldn’t joke with such things, Arnfinn.”
“Joke! Indeed I am not joking. I wish to heaven that I were. What a pity it is that she has taken such a dislike to him!”
“Dislike! Oh, you are a profound philosopher, you are! You think that because she avoids—”
Here Inga abruptly clapped her hand over her mouth, and, with sudden change of voice and expression, said:
“I am as silent as the grave.”
“Yes, you are wonderfully discreet,” cried Arnfinn, laughing, while the girl bit her under lip with an air of penitence and mortification which, in any other bosom than a cousin’s would have aroused compassion.
“Aha! So steht’s!” he broke forth, with another burst of merriment; then, softened by the sight of a tear that was slowly gathering beneath her eyelashes, he checked his laughter, crept up to her side, and in a half childishly coaxing, half caressing tone, he whispered: