“For Heaven’s sake don’t sit there smiling like that. It only makes me wilder than ever in love.”
“Oh, you’re quite mad,” says Olga softly, flushing red.
“Sometimes I think to myself: perhaps she laughs up at me that way just to make me lose my senses all the more. That’s how they kill ducks and geese, you know, jab them a little in the head with a knife, and then they swell, and it makes them all the finer.”
Olga answered offendedly, “I don’t do anything of the sort; you need not think so.” And she rose, and made as if to go indoors.
“If you go now,” said Rolandsen, “I shall only come in after you, and ask your father if he’s read the books.”
“Father’s not at home.”
“Well, I didn’t come to see him, anyway. But you, Olga, you’re bitter and unapproachable this day. There’s no wringing a drop of kindness out of you. You never heed me, you pass me by.”
Olga laughed again.
“But there’s that girl of Børre’s,” said Rolandsen. “Her name’s Pernille. I’ve heard them call her so myself. And her father blows the organ at church.”
“Must you have a sweetheart dangling at every finger?” asked Olga seriously.