I took off my cap and brushed back my hair mechanically as I stood looking at her. “Doesn't matter...?” Herr Mack was saying something, a good way off; we could not hear his words from where we were. But I was glad to think that Herr Mack had seen nothing, that he knew nothing of this. It was well indeed that he had been away from the party just then. I felt relieved at that, and I stepped over to the others and said with a laugh, and seeming quite indifferent: “I would ask you all to forgive my unseemly behavior a moment ago; I am myself extremely sorry about it. Edwarda kindly offered to change flowers with me, and I forgot myself. I beg her pardon and yours. Put yourself in my place; I live all alone, and am not accustomed to the society of ladies; besides which, I have been drinking wine, and am not used to that either. You must make allowances for that.” And I laughed, and showed great indifference to such a trifle, that it might be forgotten; but, inwardly, I was serious. Moreover, what I had said made no impression on Edwarda. She did not try to hide anything, to smooth over the effect of her hasty action: on the contrary, she sat down close to me and kept looking at me fixedly. Now and again she spoke to me. And afterwards, when we were playing “_Enke_,” she said: “I shall have Lieutenant Glahn. I don't care to run after anyone else.” “_Saa for Satan_, [Footnote: Expletive, equivalent to “The Devil!” or “Damnation!”] girl, be quiet!” I whispered, stamping my foot. She gave me a look of surprise, made a wry face as if it hurt, and then smiled bashfully. I was deeply moved at that; the helpless look in her eyes and her little thin figure were more than I could resist; I was drawn to her in that moment, and I took her long, slight hand in mine. “Afterwards,” I said, “No more now. We can meet again to-morrow.” XI In the night I heard Æsop get up from his corner and growl; I heard it through my sleep, but I was dreaming just then of shooting, the growl of the dog fitted into the dream, and it did not wake me, quite. When I stepped out of the hut next morning there were tracks in the grass of a pair of human feet; someone had been there--had gone first to one of my windows, then to the other. The tracks were lost again down on the road. She came towards me with hot cheeks, with a face all beaming. “Have you been waiting?” she said. “I was afraid you would have to wait.” I had not been waiting; she was on the way before me. “Have you slept well?” I asked. I hardly knew what to say. “No, I haven't. I have been awake,” she answered. And she told me she had not slept that night, but had sat in a chair with her eyes closed. And she had been out of the house for a little walk. “Someone was outside my hut last night,” I said. “I saw tracks in the grass this morning.” And her face colored; she took my hand there, on the road, and made no answer. I looked at her, and said: “Was it you, I wonder?”