After a time she came into his room again and resumed her work of cleaning. She banged the things about; pulling down some work of his that he had set to dry by the stove, and giving him a malicious sidelong look. Then a cup containing paste fell to the ground and was broken. “She did that on purpose,” he thought unhappily, and he put the paste into an empty box. She stood watching him with a piercing, malicious gaze.
He turned to his work again, and made as though nothing had happened. Suddenly he felt her thin arms about his neck. “Forgive me!” she said, weeping, and she hid her face against his shoulder.
“Come, come, nothing very dreadful has happened! The silly old cup!” he said consolingly, as he stroked her head. “You couldn’t help it!”
But at that she broke down altogether, and it seemed as though her crying would destroy her meager body. “Yes, I did it on purpose!” she bellowed. “And I threw down the boots on purpose, and yesterday I didn’t give you the message on purpose. I would have liked to hurt you still more, I’m so bad, bad, bad! Why doesn’t some one give me a good beating? If you’d only once be properly angry with me!”
She was quite beside herself and did not know what she was saying.
“Now listen to me at once—you’ve got to be sensible!” said Pelle decidedly, “for this sort of thing is not amusing. I was pleased to think I was going to be at home to-day, so as to work beside you, and then you go and have an attack just like a fine lady!”
She overcame her weeping by a tremendous effort, and went back to her room, gently sobbing. She returned at once with a cracked cup for the paste and a small tin box with a slit in the lid. This was her money- box.
“Take it,” she said, pushing the box onto his lap. “Then you can buy yourself lasts and needn’t go asking the small employers for work. There’s work enough here in the ‘Ark.’”
“But, Marie—that’s your rent!” said Pelle, aghast.
“What does that matter? I can easily get the money together again by the first.”