“It's not the first time you've wanted to get Ragnhild out of the way; Heaven knows what for! She's the best maid we've ever had.”
“For that particular purpose, I dare say,” he retorted.
This set me thinking. Fruen was perhaps crafty enough to keep this girl spying, simply to make it seem as if she cared at all what her husband did. Then people could imagine that Fruen, poor thing, went about secretly longing for him, and being constantly disappointed and wronged. And then, of course, who could blame her if she did the like in return, and went her own way? Heaven knows if that was the way of it!
One day later on the Captain changed his tactics. He had not managed to free himself from Ragnhild's watchfulness; she was still there, to be close at hand when he was talking to Elisabet in some corner, or making towards the summer-house late in the evening to sit there with some one undisturbed. So he tried another way, and began making himself agreeable to that same Ragnhild. Oho! 'twas a woman's wit—no doubt, 'twas Elisabet—had put him up to that!
We were sitting at the long dining-table in the kitchen, Nils and I and the lad; Fruen was there, and the maids were busy with their own work. Then in comes the Captain from the house with a brush in his hand.
“Give my coat a bit of a brush, d'you mind?” says he to Ragnhild.
She obeyed. When she had finished, he thanked her, saying: “Thank you, my child.”
Fruen looked a little surprised, and, a moment after, sent her maid upstairs for something. The Captain looked after her as she went, and said:
“Wonderfully bright eyes that girl has, to be sure.”
I glanced across at Fruen. Her eyes were blazing, her cheeks flushed, as she moved to leave the room. But in the doorway she turned, and now her face was pale. She seemed to have formed her resolution already. Speaking over her shoulder, she said to her husband: