Eline laughed loudly, and her laugh and the shrill words of her excited voice frightened Ben. With his big eyes and his mouth wide open he stared at her. But still she laughed.
“Oh, he does not understand anything of it, the little man. Eh, you don’t know what it is that aunt is raving about, do you? But it is delicious to rave like that. I wish I could do something very desperate, some awfully mad trick, something utterly ridiculous, but I cannot think of anything. My mind is so dulled just now that I cannot think. If only Elise were here she would know something. Do you know what we did one day, Elise and I, the first time I stayed in Brussels? I never had the courage to tell any one of it before, but now I dare say anything. Nothing troubles me now. Just fancy, one evening we went out together for a walk, all alone, you know, just for a little adventure. Don’t you say a word of it to any one, do you hear? Then we met two gentlemen, two very nice gentlemen, whom we did not know at all. With them we went for a drive—in an open landau, and then—then we went with them into a café.”
Her story was continually interrupted by little nervous shrill laughs, and with the last words she burst out into an uncontrollable fit of hysterical laughter. Not a word was true of the whole story, but at that moment she believed in it herself.
“Just fancy, in a café—in a café! And then——”
“Eline, do pray stop that mad talk,” said Betsy softly.
“Ah! I suppose you think it awfully shocking, eh? But rest assured, it was not quite so bad as all that.”
She still laughed, half weeping, and at last she burst out in hysterical sobs.
“Oh, that wretched Reyer! I have always such a terrible pain here in my head, and he does not care. He is always boring me about my cough. I know I cough—that is no news; and oh, great heavens! it is so horribly dull in that Pension.”
“Why don’t you come and stay with us then?”
“Oh, that would never do. In three days’ time we should be pulling ourselves by the hair,” laughed Eline boisterously. “Now that we see each other but rarely it is much better.”