“The world whirls like a wheel in a squirrel cage which we all tread:––only to find ourselves together after travelling many, many miles at top speed!... Are you well, John Estridge?”
“Fairly,” he laughed, “but nobody except the immortals could ever be as well as you, Ilse Westgard!”
She laughed in sheer exuberance of her own physical vigour: “Only that old and toothless nemesis of Loki can slay me, John Estridge!” And, to Palla: “I had some slight trouble in Stockholm. Fancy!––a little shrimp of a man approached me on the street one evening when there chanced to be nobody near.
“And the first I knew he was mouthing and grinning and saying to me in Russian: ‘I know you, hired mercenary of the aristocrats!––I know you!––big white battle horse that carried the bloody war-god!’
“I was too astonished, my dear; I merely gazed upon this small and agitated toad, who continued to run alongside and grimace and pull funny faces at me. He appeared to be furious, and he said some very vile things to me.
“I was disgusted and walked faster, and he had to run. And all the while he was squealing at me: ‘I know you! You keep out of America, do you hear? If you sail on that steamer, we follow you and kill you! You hear it what I say? We kill! Kill! Kill!–––’”
She threw up her superb head and laughed:
“Can you see him––this insect––Palla!––so small and hairy, with crazy eyes like little sparks among the furry whiskers!––and running, running at heel, underfoot, one side and then the other, and squealing ‘Kill! Kill? Kill’–––”
She had made them see the picture and they all laughed.