“Has it ever struck you that you have never seen your face? Only the reflection of it in the glass. We can never see what our face looks like when we sleep or shut our eyes—isn’t it odd? It was my birthday the day I met you; today it is yours. Are you glad to be twenty-eight, you who think that every year completed is a gain?” “I did not say that. I said that you may have had so much to go through the first twenty-five years of your life that you are glad they are over.” “And now?” “Now....” “Yes; do you know exactly what you want to attain during the next year—what use you are going to make of it? Life seems to me so overwhelmingly rich in possibilities that even you, with all your strength, cannot avail yourself of them. Does it ever occur to you, and does it make you sad, Jenny?” She only smiled in answer, and looked down. She threw the end of her cigarette on the ground and put her foot on it; her white ankle showed through the thin black stocking. She followed with her eyes a pack of sheep running down the opposite slope. “We are forgetting the coffee, Mr. Gram—I am sure they are waiting for us.” They returned to the _osteria_ in silence; on the slope, which stretched right down to where they had been lunching, they noticed that Ahlin was lying forward over the table, his head on his arms. Francesca in her bright green gown bent over him, her arms round his neck, trying to lift his head. “Oh, don’t, Lennart! Don’t cry. I will love you. I will marry you—do you hear?—but you must not cry like that. I will marry you, and I think I can be fond of you, only don’t be so miserable.” Ahlin sobbed: “No, no—not if you don’t love me, Cesca; I don’t want you to....” Jenny turned and went back along the slope. Gram noticed that she flushed a deep red down to her neck. A path took them down by the other side of the house into the orchard. Heggen and Miss Palm were chasing each other round the little fountain, splashing each other with water. Miss Palm shrieked with laughter. Helge saw the colour again mount to Jenny’s face and neck as he walked behind her between the vegetable beds. Heggen and Miss Palm had made peace. “The same old round,” said Helge; “take your partners.” Jenny nodded, with the shadow of a smile. The atmosphere at the coffee-table was somewhat strained. Miss Palm alone was in good spirits. Francesca tried to make conversation while they were sipping their liqueurs, and, as soon as she decently could, proposed that they should go for a walk. The three couples made for the Campagna, the distance between them increasing, until they lost sight of one another altogether among the hills. Jenny walked with Gram. “Where are we going really?” she said. “We might go to the Egeria grotto, for instance.” The grotto lay in quite an opposite direction to the one chosen by the others. They started to walk across the scorched slopes to the Bosco Sacro, where the ancient cork trees stretched their dark foliage to the burning sun.