Peer sat on the sofa, leaning forward with his head in his hands, listening. And there she stood, at the music-stand, in her red dress, flushed and warm, and shining in the yellow lamplight, playing.
Then suddenly the thought of her mother came to her, and she went to the telephone. “Mother—are you there, mother? Oh, we’ve had such a glorious day.” And the girl ran on, as if trying to light up her mother’s heart with some rays of the happiness her own happy day had brought her.
A little later Peer lay in bed, while Merle flitted about the room, lingering over her toilet.
He watched her as she stood in her long white gown before the toilet-table with the little green-shaded lamps, doing her hair for the night in a long plait. Neither of them spoke. He could see her face in the glass, and saw that her eyes were watching him, with a soft, mysterious glance—the scent of her hair seemed to fill the place with youth.
She turned round towards him and smiled. And he lay still, beckoning her towards him with shining eyes. All that had passed that evening—their outing, and the homeward journey in the violet dusk, their little feast, and his story, the wine—all had turned to love in their hearts, and shone out now in their smile.
It may be that some touch of the cold breath of the eternities was still in their minds, the remembrance of the millions on millions that die, the flight of the aeons towards endless darkness; yet in spite of all, the minutes now to come, their warm embrace, held a whole world of bliss, that out-weighed all, and made Peer, as he lay there, long to send out a hymn of praise into the universe, because it was so wonderful to live.
He began to understand why she lingered and took so long. It was a sign that she wanted to surprise him, that her heart was kind. And her light breathing seemed even now to fill the room with love.
Outside in the night the lake-ice, splitting into new crevices, sent up loud reports; and the winter sky above the roof that sheltered them was lit with all its stars.