"The fact is, Miss Krog, that Norwegians, generally speaking, don't know what obedience and discipline are. During the short time we have them under command, we must teach them." "Teach them in what way?" "In small things, of course." "By plaguing them about small things?" "Exactly." "Giving orders for which they see no necessity?" "Precisely. They must learn to give up reasoning. They must obey. And what they do, they must do properly; exactly as it should be done." Mary did not answer. She addressed another couple who now made up to them, and continued doing so till they all reached the pier. On board the steamer she noticed that Jörgen Thiis was out of humour. When they landed, he was not standing at the gangway. Without any previous arrangement, the whole party accompanied her home to the house on the market-place. They sang and shouted under the windows until she came out on the balcony and threw flowers down on them--those she had brought home with her and any more she could find. Then they dispersed, laughing and joking. As they were going off, she looked for Jörgen; he was not there. This vexed her; she felt that she had rewarded him ill for one of the most delightful days in her life. Entertainments, large and small, followed one on the other. But Jörgen Thiis was absent from them all. He had first gone home to see his parents, then to Christiania. Mary had never devoted much thought to Jörgen Thiis, but now that he kept away, she could not help remembering that she had chiefly him to thank for the happy meeting with the young people of her own age. And that remarkable toast of his--"fidelity to the ideal"--at the time he proposed it she had merely thought: How sentimental Jörgen Thiis can be! Now she thought: Perhaps it was an allusion to me? She was accustomed to such exaggerations; and she did not care in the least for Jörgen Thiis. But when she remembered how deeply in love he had fallen at their first meeting, and how all these years he had been exactly the same whenever and wherever they met, the matter assumed a more serious aspect. The gloating, greedy eyes acquired something almost touching. The fact that he could not bear to be with her when she was the least displeased with him was another proof of the strength of his attachment. His saying nothing, but simply staying away, appealed to her.