“But you mustn’t. However could you, Hedvig! That you could ever dare.... Come! We must put it back at once.”
Hedvig made as if to obey, and drew the thing down, but the moment her legs were free, she turned a back-somersault and commenced a wild topsy-turvy dance in the air, waving her feet about like a catherine-wheel. Then suddenly she disappeared again under the pall, showing not so much as the tip of her nose.
The match went out. Fru Egholm shook her head anxiously, with a faint smile, and stole out of the room. Hedvig—what a child!
All was quiet in the parlour now. Egholm was apparently asleep. Pray God he might wake in a better mood!
Anyhow, they had got that fellow Vang out of the house at last—and if she could manage it, he should not be in a hurry to come again. He’d a bad influence. The way he spoke about his wife—Egholm would never have talked like that himself! A nice sort of fellow, indeed—and his father owned a hotel!
Her breast heaved as she undressed and laid her things neatly on a chair, as her father had taught her when a child. She listened breathlessly—was Egholm asleep?
Should she?... He didn’t deserve it—but why think of that now?
Softly she dragged the mattress from under the window, a little way over the floor, stopped, listened, and dragged it a little farther. Then she started at a sound, and felt ashamed, as if she had been a thief trying to steal her own bed.
Little by little she edged her way along, and finally crept under the clothes with a sigh of resignation.
When he awoke, he should find her humble couch on the floor beside his bed.