“I may just as well tell you,” Lasse interrupted. “He called me Madam Olsen’s concubine—from the Bible story, I suppose.”
Kongstrup tried to suppress a chuckle, as if some one had whispered a coarse joke in his ear, and he could not help it. The mistress herself was serious enough.
“I don’t think I understand,” she said, and laid a repressing hand upon her husband’s arm. “Lasse must explain.”
“It’s because I was engaged to Madam Olsen in the village, who every one thought was a widow; and then her husband came home the other day. And so they’ve given me that nickname round about, I suppose.”
Kongstrup began his suppressed laughter again, and Lasse blinked in distress at it.
“Help yourselves to a cake!” said Fru Kongstrup in a very loud voice, pushing the plate toward them. This silenced Kongstrup, and he lay and watched their assault upon the cake-plate with an attentive eye.
Fru Kongstrup sat tapping the table with her middle finger while they ate. “So that good boy Pelle got angry and kicked out, did he?” she said suddenly, her eyes flashing.
“Yes, that’s what he never ought to have done!” answered Lasse plaintively.
Fru Kongstrup fixed her eyes upon him.
“No, for all that the poorer birds are for is to be pecked at! Well, I prefer the bird that pecks back again and defends its nest, no matter how poor it is. Well, well, we shall see! And is that boy going to be confirmed? Why, of course! To think that I should be so forgetful! Then we must begin to think about his clothes.”