But the stout Captain and his lady are coming up; the pair in the summer-house will hardly be aware of their approach, and Fru Falkenberg would perhaps find it far from agreeable to be discovered sitting there with a man just now. I look about for some means of warning them; here is an empty bottle; I go to the window and fling it as hard as I can over towards the summer-house. There is a crash, bottle and tiles are broken, and the pieces go clattering down over the roof; a cry of dismay from within, and Fru Falkenberg rushes out, her companion behind her still grasping her dress. They stop for a moment and look about them. “Bror!” cries Fru Falkenberg, and sets off at a run down the shrubbery. “No, don't come,” she calls back over her shoulder. “You mustn't, I tell you.”
But the engineer ran after her, all the same. Wonderfully young he was, and all inflexible.
Now the stout Captain and his lady come up, and their talk is a marvel to hear. Love: there is nothing like it, so it seems. The stout cavalier must be sixty at the least, and the lady with him, say forty; their infatuation was a sight to see.
The Captain speaks:
“And up to this evening I've managed to hide it somehow, but now—well, it's more than any man can. You've bewitched me Frue, completely.”
“I didn't think you cared so much, really,” she answers gently, trying to help him along.
“Well, I do,” he says. “And I can't stand it any longer, and that's the truth. When we were up in the woods just now, I still thought I could get through one more night, and didn't say anything much at the time. But now; come back with me, say you will!”
She shook her head.
“No; oh, I'd love to give you ... do what you....”
“Ah!” he exclaims, and, throwing his arms about her, stands pressing his round paunch against hers. There they stood, looking like two recalcitrants that would not. Oh, that Captain!