"Who is it?"
"Grip," she whispered.
The captain had sat patiently and listened—entirely patiently—till the last word. But now he flew up and placed himself before her; he struck his hands together on the backs, and stretched them out, utterly without self-control.
"But, kingdom of heaven!" he broke out at last. "Where are you!—What are you thinking of? You can't for a single moment ever think of comparing such a—Grip with a man like Rönnow?—I tell you, Inger-Johanna, your father is absolutely, totally—you—you might just as well rise up and strike me dead at once."
"Listen, father!" came from Inger-Johanna; at the same moment she sprang up and stood before him. "If Thinka and the others have not saved themselves, no one shall trample on me."
Ma continued sitting with sharp, compressed face.
"Such pure insanity!" The captain struck his fist against his forehead and walked up and down the floor disconsolately. "But now I see it;" he stopped again, nodding to himself. "You have been spoiled, dreadfully spoiled—spoiled, since you were little—And then we get it again, only because I think so much of you."
"The whole world could contradict me, father. I have only my right way to go—to do as I have done—write to Rönnow, give full explanation, and tell it to aunt. And," she leaned against the sofa and looked down bitterly, as the remembrance came over her, "aunt has done what she could, I can assure you—thought, as you do, father, that it was pure insanity. She was so fond of me that she did not care how much wretchedness it was for me if the match only came off. So vain and young as I was, she thought, all she had to do was to get Grip cried down and pursued, so that he should stand without means, hemmed in on all sides without any way out, a man made an object of ridicule, who was obliged to give up his purpose—only his father over again. It was so easily done, as he fought for his opinions unsupported, and it would be taken up so readily, as she knew." She stood there so self-assured, tremblingly lost in her own thoughts, with downcast eyes and dark brows. She had become thin and slim. "And now I have come home here with more sorrow than I can tell you or explain—so full of fear—"
There was a silence during which strange emotions were working in the captain. "Do you say that we are not fond of you—will do you harm? Well, then, perhaps, I might not consider it so right hereafter, what you have done. I say perhaps; but now I tell you that, if you must do it, then we shall stand by it, just as you yourself wish in the affair. You understand it, at all events. Why, you have not even sat down, child. Let her have something to eat, Ma, at once."
He started up. There was a good deal to be got out of the way in her room, so she should not see that repairs were going on.