He bowed, and stood watching her with a sneering smile.
“A son? Oh yes,” she replied, with sudden emotion. “I am old, yes. And you are so young, Hugo, that's true. And that's why I kissed you. But I couldn't be your mother—no, it's only that I'm older, ever so much older than you. But I'm not quite an old woman yet, and that you should see if only . . . But I'm older than Elisabet and every one else. Oh, what am I talking about? Not a bit of it. I don't know what else the years may have done to me, but they haven't made me an old woman yet. Have they? What do you think yourself? Oh, but what do you know about it? . . .”
“No, no,” he said softly. “But is there any sense in going on like this? Here are you, young as you are, with nothing on earth to do all the time but keep guard over yourself and get others to do the same. And the Lord in heaven knows you promised me a thing, but it means so little to you; you take a pleasure in putting me off and beating me down with your great white wings.”
“Great white wings,” she murmured to herself.
“Yes, you might have great red wings. Look at yourself now, standing there all lovely as you are, and all for nothing.”
“Oh, I think the wine has gone to my head! All for nothing, indeed!”
Then suddenly she takes his hand and leads him down the steps. I can hear her voice: “Why should I care? Does he imagine Elisabet's so much better?”
They pass along the path to the summer-house. Here she hesitates, and stops.
“Oh, where are we going?” she asks. “Haha, we must be mad! You wouldn't have thought I was mad, would you? I'm not, either—that is to say, yes, I am, now and again. There, the door's locked; very well, we'll go away again. But what a mean trick to lock the door, when we want to go in.”
Full of bitterness and suspicion, he answered: