assed.

*****

When the sun had set on the evening of the next day, they walked about
together in the garden. Arm in arm they walked very slowly and very
silently up one path and down the other, out of the fragrance of
mignonettes through that of roses into that of jasmine. A few moths
fluttered past them; out in the grain-field a wild duck called,
otherwise most of the sounds came from Thora's silk dress.

"How silent we can be," exclaimed Thora.

"And how we can walk!" Mogens continued, "we must have walked about four
miles by now."

Then they walked again for a while and were silent.

"Of what are you thinking now?" she asked.

"I am thinking of myself."

"That's just what I am doing."

"Are you also thinking of yourself?"

"No, of yourself--of you, Mogens."

He drew her closer. They were going up to the conservatory. The door
was open; it was very light in there, and the table with the snowy-white
cloth, the silver dish with the dark red strawberries, the shining
silver pot and the chandelier gave quite a festive impression.

"It is as in the fairy-tale, where Hansel and Gretel come to the
cake-house out in the wood," Thora said.

"Do you want to go in?"

"Oh, you quite forget, that in there dwells a witch, who wants to put us
unhappy little children into an oven and eat us. No, it is much better
that we resist the sugar-panes and the pancake-roof, take each other by
the hand, and go back into the dark, dark wood."

They walked away from the conservatory. She leaned closely toward Mogens
and continued: "It may also be the palace of the Grand Turk and you are
the Arab from the desert who wants to carry me off, and the guard is
pursuing us; the curved sabers flash, and we run and run, but they have
taken your horse, and then they take us along and put us into a big bag,
and we are in it together and are drowned in the sea.--Let me see, or
might it be...?"

"Why might it not be, what it is?"

"Well, it might be that, but it is not enough.... If you knew how I love
you, but I am so unhappy--I don't know what it is--there is such a great
distance between us--no--"

She flung her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately and
pressed her burning cheek against his:

"I don't know how it is, but sometimes I almost wish that you beat me--I
know it is childish, and that I am very happy, very happy, and yet I
feel so unhappy!"

She laid her head on his breast and wept, and then she began while h