Fru Boyesen sighed. She was not satisfied with the result of the interview--it had been so different from what she had expected. She took her leave, thinking to herself, "Poor man, one can see that he doesn't know much of the practical side of life! How could he, being a bachelor?" Doctor Tommsen, watching her substantial figure retreat down the street, drummed on the window and said to himself: "What fools these women are! And the old ones who ought to know better are always trying to drag the girls into the same miserable mistakes they have made themselves." He was sorry for Ragna--"They will probably end by making a fool of her too, one girl can't stand out against the whole State of Society!" CHAPTER IX Fru Boyesen went to Fru Bjork for consolation and over a cup of coffee discussed the Doctor's refusal. Fru Bjork was more at a loss than her friend to understand Ragna's indifference to the advantages of the married state, and she held up her hands in horror at Fru Boyesen's account of Dr. Tommsen's speeches--it may be said that they lost nothing in the telling. Sentence by sentence she repeated them, punctuating them with indignant sniffs, and appreciative sips at her cup. Fru Bjork listened, her fat hands clasped on her rotund person, her cap awry over her kindly face, her eyes wide and round with dismay. "He says," stated Fru Boyesen, "that we respectable married women sell ourselves for hire like the women on the streets. He says that marriage is immoral and irreligious." "Perhaps," said Fru Bjork, "he is a believer in free love. Try a little of this seed-cake, my dear, I made it myself." Fru Boyesen helped herself and continued, her mouth half-full, "He must be,--anyway he is outrageous, and it's no longer a mystery to me where Ragna gets her absurd ideas from. If I'd known what sort of a man he was, I never should have let her study under him. But his name is so well known! He is so universally respected! I don't understand it at all!" Fru Bjork agreed with her--she had the amiable habit of agreeing with everyone, it saved so much trouble, and Fru Boyesen went on to recount the rest of the interview. Fru Bjork approved of the suggestion of sending Ragna away for a time. "Travelling is good for young girls," she opined, "it takes the nonsense out of them and when they have seen how things are done in other countries, they are ready enough to settle down in their own."