The nights too were brilliant and full of sun. It was weather for dreams; for little fluttering quests of the heart. Young folk walked the roads by night, singing and waving branches of willow. And from every rocky islet came the calling of birds--of loon and gull and eider-duck. And the seal thrust up its dripping head from the water, looked round, and dived again down to its own world below. Ove Rolandsen too felt the spell; now and again he could be heard singing or strumming in his room of nights, and that was more than need be looked for from a man who was no longer a youth. And, indeed, it was not for any meaningless delight he twanged and trolled his songs, but rather by way of diversion, by way of relief from his weighty thoughts. Rolandsen is thinking deeply these days; he is in a quandary, and must find a way out. Jomfru van Loos, of course, had turned up again; she was not given to extravagant wastefulness in matters of love, and she held now by their betrothal as before. On the other hand, Ove Rolandsen, as he had said, was not God; he could not keep that heart of his within bounds in spring. It was hard on a man to have a betrothed who would not understand when matters were clearly broken off between them. Rolandsen had been down to visit the parish clerk again, and there was Olga sitting outside the door. But there was a deal of money about just now, with herring at six _Ort_ the barrel, and Olga seemed inclined to put on airs. Or what else could it be? Was he, Rolandsen, the sort of man a girl could afford to pass by? She merely glanced up at him, and went on with her knitting as before. Said Rolandsen, “There! You looked up. Your eyes are like arrows; they wound a man.” “I don’t understand you,” said Olga. “Oh! And do you suppose I understand myself? Not in the least. I’ve lost my senses. Here I am now, for instance, paving the way for you to plague me through the night that’s to come.” “Then why don’t you go away?” said Olga. “I was listening to a voice last night--a voice within me. All unspeakable things it said. In a word, I resolved to take a great decision, if you think you can advise me to do it.” “How can I? I’ve nothing to do with it.” “Ho!” said Rolandsen. “You’re full of bitter words to-day. Sitting there lashing out all the time. Talking of something else, you’ll have that hair of yours falling off before long. There’s too much of it.” Olga was silent. “Do you know Børre the organ-blower? There’s a girl of his I could have if I cared.” Olga burst out laughing at that, and stared at him. “For Heaven’s sake don’t sit there smiling like that. It only makes me wilder than ever in love.” “Oh, you’re quite mad,” says Olga softly, flushing red. “Sometimes I think to myself: perhaps she laughs up at me that way just to make me lose my senses all the more. That’s how they kill ducks and geese, you know, jab them a little in the head with a knife, and then they swell, and it makes them all the finer.”