Next winter she sat at home in the evenings while he read, and made herself a dress and cloak and trimmed a new hat, so that Peer soon had quite an elegant young lady to walk out with. But when men turned round to look at her as she passed, he would scowl and clench his fists. At last one day this was too much for Louise, and she rebelled. “Now, Peer, I tell you plainly I won’t go out with you if you go on like that.”
“All right, my girl,” he growled. “I’ll look after you, though, never fear. We’re not going to have mother’s story over again with you.”
“Well, but, after all, I’m a grown-up-girl, and you can’t prevent people looking at me, idiot!”
Klaus Brock had been entered at the Technical College that autumn, and went about now with the College badge in his cap, and sported a walking-stick and a cigarette. He had grown into a big, broad-shouldered fellow, and walked with a little swing in his step; a thick shock of black hair fell over his forehead, and he had a way of looking about him as if to say: “Anything the matter? All right, I’m ready!”
One evening he came in and asked Louise to go with him to the theatre. The young girl blushed red with joy, and Peer could not refuse; but he was waiting for them outside the yard gate when they came back. On a Sunday soon after Klaus was there again, asking her to come out for a drive. This time she did not even look to Peer for leave, but said “yes” at once. “Just you wait,” said Peer to himself. And when she came back that evening he read her a terrific lecture.
Soon he could not help seeing that the girl was going about with half-shut eyes, dreaming dreams of which she would never speak to him. And as the days went on her hands grew whiter, and she moved more lightly, as if to the rhythm of unheard music. Always as she went about the room on her household tasks she was crooning some song; it seemed that there was some joy in her soul that must find an outlet.
One Saturday in the late spring she had just come home, and was getting the supper, when Peer came tramping in, dressed in his best and carrying a parcel.
“Hi, girl! Here you are! We’re going to have a rare old feast to-night.”
“Why—what is it all about?”
“I’ve passed my entrance exam for the Technical—hurrah! Next autumn—next autumn—I’ll be a student!”