“Borghild was angry with me because I pawned the diamond ring I had from our grandmother. I have never told you about it. Hans said he _had_ to have money—a hundred _kroner_—and I promised to get it. Where I didn’t know. I dared not write to father, for I’d spent more than my allowance already, so I went and pawned my watch and a chain bracelet and that ring—one of those old ones, you know, with a lot of little diamonds on a big shield. Borghild was angry because it had not been given to her, being the eldest, but grandmother had said I should have it, as I was named after her. I went down one morning as soon as they opened; it was hateful, but I got the money and I took it to Hans. He asked where I had got it from, and I told him. Then he kissed me and said: ‘Give me the ticket and the money, puss’—that is what he used to call me—and I did. I thought he meant to redeem it, and said he need not. I was very much moved, you see. ‘I will settle it in another way,’ said Hans, and went out. I stayed in his rooms and waited. I was very excited, for I knew he wanted the money, and I decided to go and pawn the things again the next day. It would not be so horrid a second time—nothing more would be difficult. I would give him everything now. Then he came—and what do you think he had done?” She laughed amidst the tears. “He had redeemed the things from the loan-office and pawned them with his private banker, as he called him, who gave more for them. “We went about all day together—champagne and all the rest of it—and I went home with him at night. He played to me—my God, how he played! I lay on the floor and cried. Nothing mattered as long as he played like that, and to me alone. You have not heard him play; if you had, you would understand me. But afterwards it was awful. We fought like mad, but I got away at last. Borghild was awake when I came home. My dress was torn to tatters. ‘You look like a street-girl,’ she said. I laughed. It was five o’clock. “I should have given in in the end, you know, if it hadn’t been for one thing he had said. Sometimes he used to say: ‘You are the only decent girl I have met. There is not a man who could get round you. I respect you, puss.’ Fancy, he respected me for refusing to do what he begged and worried me about constantly. I wanted to give in, for I would have done anything to please him, but I could not get over my scare; he was so brutal, and I knew there were others. If only he had not frightened me so many times, I might have given up the struggle but then, of course, I should have lost his respect. That is why I broke with him at last—for wanting me to act in such a way that he would despise me.” She nestled close to Jenny, who caressed her. “Do you love me a little, Jenny?” “You know I do, darling child.”