Olga laughed.
“Oh, there’s no sense in that!”
“Oh, but your eyes are like twin stars,” he said. “And when you smile, it’s sunlight all round and all over me.”
She took away the cloth, and brushed him down, and swept up the hair from the floor. Rolandsen bent down to help her, and their hands met. She was a maid, he felt the breath of her lips close to, and it thrilled him warmly. He took her hand. Her dress, he saw, was fastened at the throat with just an ordinary pin. It looked wretchedly poor.
“Oh—what did you do that for?” she stammered.
“Nothing. I mean, thank you for doing my hair. If it wasn’t for being firmly and everlastingly promised to another, I’d be in love with you this minute.”
She stood up with the clippings of hair in her hands, and he leaned back.
“Now your clothes’ll be all in a mess,” she said, and left the room.
When her father came in, Rolandsen had to be jovial once more; he stretched out his shorn head, and drew his hat down over his ears to show it was too big for him now. Then suddenly he looked at the time, said he must get back to the station, and went off.
Rolandsen went to the store. He asked to look at some brooches and pins—the most expensive sort. He picked out an imitation cameo, and said he would pay for it later, if that would do. But that would not do; Rolandsen owed too much already. Consequently, he was reduced to taking a cheap little glass thing, coloured to look like agate—this being all his few small coins would run to. And Rolandsen went off with his treasure.