at can you be thinking of?--those
expensive books." She felt really quite angry with him. "Don't you know
that they cost money?"

"Pooh!" He made a gesture as if to say, what did that matter? "Then
some new ones will be bought."

"Even if your father has sufficient money," she said, firing up,
"it's still not right of you to treat these good books like that."

He did not say a word to that, but took them up and fastened the
strap round them again. They stood together, both feeling embarrassed.
She glanced sideways at him: how he had changed. And he felt vexed that
he had got into a passion: what would she think of him now?

"I shall have to go now," she said all at once, "or I shan't even
get my dinner eaten ugh, how hungry I am!" She put her hand on her
stomach. "How good it'll taste! Mother has potatoes in their jackets
and herrings to-day."

"I shall go too." Suiting his step to hers he trotted beside her as
she tripped hastily along.

She got quite red: what would her mother say if she brought
Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day
when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there
were no herrings, only onion sauce with the potatoes in their
jackets.

She felt ashamed that Wolfgang should find it out.

"No, you go home," she said, intrenching herself behind a pout. "As
you've not been to see us for so long, you needn't come to-day either.
I'm angry with you."

"Angry with me--me? What have I done? I wasn't allowed to come to
you, I mightn't--that's not my fault, surely. Frida!"

She commenced to run, her face quite scarlet; he ran beside her.
"Frida! Frida, surely you can't be angry with _me_? Oh, Frida, don't be
angry. Frida, let me go with you. At last I've met you, and then you
behave like this?"

There was sorrow in his voice. She felt it, but she was angry all
the same: why should he cling to her like that? Flebbe would not like
it at all. And so she said in a pert voice: "We don't suit each other
and never shall. You go with your young ladies. You belong to
them."

"Say that once more--dare to do it!" He shouted in a rough voice,
and raised his hand as though he would strike her. "Affected creatures,
what are they to me?"

He was right--she had to confess it in her heart--he had never taken
any notice of the young girls who lived in the villas around him. She
knew very well that he preferred them to them all, and her vanity felt
flattered;