"Ragna's marriage. What do you know of this Valentini person, this, this--" "Valentini!" exclaimed Astrid, still amazed, but with a note of comprehension in her voice. "Ragna has married Valentini?" "You knew him then?" "Why, yes," said Astrid seating herself on the chair Ingeborg set for her. "We both knew him, he was our drawing master in Florence." "A drawing master! My niece marry a drawing master! My niece!" "But Fru Boyesen, he is not just a drawing master, he is an artist." Now this conveyed absolutely nothing to the elder woman's mind. She considered artists a sort of licensed and decorative charlatans, a long-haired and casual fraternity, the froth rising to the surface of the solid and respectable mass of society, all very well in their place, no doubt, but to be kept at a discreet distance; beings as much outside the orbit of ordinary existence as the Milky Way or a handful of wandering meteors. To her mind Ragna might as well have married a peddler or an acrobat. "An artist!" she repeated scornfully, flicking the letter with outraged fingers. "And she wastes six sheets of good paper in explanations that explain nothing!" Astrid, glad to turn the point of the conversation, said, "Ragna must surely have good reasons for what she has done." "Reasons! She gives me no reasons. In the end this is what it amounts to: 'Dear Aunt, I have taken my own way; it is too late for you to change anything, so pray don't make a fuss, but make the best of it!'" The bitterness in the good woman's voice was unmistakable. "Oh, yes, she was afraid of our interference, of our disapproval--but disapproval counts for nothing with Madame, now. Well, she has made her bed, let her lie in it--nor look to me to feather her nest, I'm done with her!" "Oh, Auntie," interposed Ingeborg's gentle voice, "she is fond of you, I know it; don't be so hard on her! Ragna would never do anything that wasn't right. I know, and she would never intentionally grieve you, who have been so good to her." "Good to her, yes, I have been good to her and this is my reward; have ingratitude and an insolent disregard of me and my opinion! Ingeborg, and you too, Astrid, remember that from this day forth I wash my hands of Ragna Andersen--no I forgot, of Ragna Valentini; she is no longer my niece. She has chosen to flout me, well, she shall find out what it is to do without me, and I forbid you, both of you, ever to mention her name in my presence again. She is dead to me, as dead as if she lay in her coffin--do you understand?" She crossed the room unsteadily and tearing the letter across, thrust it into the fireplace of the large porcelain stove, then swept from the room, leaving Ingeborg and Astrid gazing horror-stricken into each other's faces.