When they were about to go he discovered the foreigner right at the back of the dancing-tent. He urged Hanne to make haste, but she stood there, staring absent-mindedly in the midst of the dancers as though she did not know what was happening around her. The stranger came over to them. Pelle was certain that Hanne had not seen him.
Suddenly she came to herself and gripped Pelle’s arm. “Shan’t we go, then?” she said impatiently, and she quickly dragged him away.
At the doorway the stranger came to meet them and bowed before Hanne. She did not look at him, but her left arm twitched as though she wanted to lay it across his shoulders.
“My sweetheart isn’t dancing any more; she is tired,” said Pelle shortly, and he led her away.
“A good thing we’ve come out from there,” she cried, with a feeling of deliverance, as they went back to her mother. “There were no amusing dancers.”
Pelle was taken aback; then she had not seen the stranger, but merely believed that it had been one of the others who had asked her to dance! It was inconceivable that she should have seen him; and yet a peculiar knowledge had enveloped her, as though she had seen obliquely through her down-dropped eyelids; and then it was well known women could see round corners! And that twitch of the arm! He did not know what to think. “Well, it’s all one to me,” he thought, “for I’m not going to be led by the nose!”
He had them both on his arm as they returned under the trees to the station. The old woman was lively; Hanne walked on in silence and let them both talk. But suddenly she begged Pelle to be quiet a moment; he looked at her in surprise.
“It’s singing so beautifully in my ears; but when you talk then it stops!”
“Nonsense! Your blood is too unruly,” said the mother, “and mouths were meant to be used.”
During the journey Pelle was reserved. Now and again he pressed Hanne’s hand, which lay, warm and slightly perspiring, in his upon the seat.