"Yes, I remember that. I thought--oh, I don't know. But when I came back to town again it was as though--" A pause. "I don't know what to think," she said. "And I do because I'm old and wise. You see, Miss Torsen, in the old days people didn't think so much about cleverness and secondary schools and the right to vote; they lived their lives on a different plane, they were naïve. I wonder if that wasn't a pretty good way to live. Of course people were cheated in those days, too, but they didn't smart under it so; they bore it with greater natural strength. We have lost our healthy powers of endurance." "It's getting cold," she said. "Shall we go home?--Yes, of course that's all quite true, but we're living in modern times. We can't change the times; I can't, at any rate; I've got to keep up with the times." "Yes, that's what it says in the Oslo morning paper. Because it used to say so in the _Neue Freie Presse_. But a person with character goes his own way up to a point, even if the majority go a different way." "Yes--well, I'm really going to tell you something now," she said, stopping. "I go to a really sensible school during the day." "Do you?" I said. "Only this time I'm learning housekeeping; isn't that a good thing?" "You mean you're learning to cut sandwiches for yourself?" "Ha, ha!" "Well, you said you weren't going to marry!" "Oh, I don't know." "Very well. You marry; you settle down in his valley. But first you have to learn housekeeping so that you can make an omelette or possibly a pudding for tourists or Englishmen that pass through." "His valley? Whose valley?" "You'd much better go to his mother's and learn all the housekeeping you're going to need from her." "Really, really," she said smiling as she walked on again, "you're quite on the wrong track. It isn't he--it isn't anybody." "So much the worse for you. There ought to be somebody." "Yes, but suppose it's not the one I want." "Oh, yes, it will be the one you want. You're big enough and handsome enough and capable enough." "Thank you very much, but--well. Thanks so much. Good night." Why did she break off so suddenly and leave me so hurriedly, almost at a run? Was she crying? I should have liked to have said more, to have been wise and circumstantial and made useful suggestions, but I was left standing in a kind of stupid surprise. Then something happened. "We haven't seen each other for such a long time," she said, the next time we met. "I'm so glad to see you again. Shall we take a short walk? I was just--" "Going to post a letter, I see." "Yes, I was going to post a letter. It's only--it's not--" We went to a newspaper office with the letter. It was evidently an advertisement; perhaps she was trying to find a situation.