“Really, I don’t know, Aunt,” Helga responded in a strange voice, a strange manner, coldly formal, levelly courteous. Then suddenly contrite, she added: “Honestly, I don’t. I can’t tell a thing about him,” and fell into a little silence. “Not a thing,” she repeated. But the phrase, though audible, was addressed to no one. To herself.

She looked out into the amazing orderliness of the street. Instinctively she wanted to combat this searching into the one thing which, here, surrounded by all other things which for so long she had so positively wanted, made her a little afraid. Started vague premonitions.

Fru Dahl regarded her intently. It would be, she remarked with a return of her outward casualness, by far the best of all possibilities. Particularly desirable. She touched Helga’s hand with her fingers in a little affectionate gesture. Very lightly.

Helga Crane didn’t immediately reply. There was, she knew, so much reason—from one viewpoint—in her aunt’s statement. She could only acknowledge it. “I know that,” she told her finally. Inwardly she was admiring the cool, easy way in which Aunt Katrina had brushed aside the momentary acid note of the conversation and resumed her customary pitch. It took, Helga thought, a great deal of security. Balance.

“Yes,” she was saying, while leisurely lighting another of those long, thin, brown cigarettes which Helga knew from distressing experience to be incredibly nasty tasting, “it would be the ideal thing for you, Helga.” She gazed penetratingly into the masked face of her niece and nodded, as though satisfied with what she saw there. “And you of course realize that you are a very charming and beautiful girl. Intelligent too. If you put your mind to it, there’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t—” Abruptly she stopped, leaving her implication at once suspended and clear. Behind her there were footsteps. A small gloved hand appeared on her shoulder. In the short moment before turning to greet Fru Fischer she said quietly, meaningly: “Or else stop wasting your time, Helga.”

Helga Crane said: “Ah, Fru Fischer. It’s good to see you.” She meant it. Her whole body was tense with suppressed indignation. Burning inside like the confined fire of a hot furnace. She was so harassed that she smiled in self-protection. And suddenly she was oddly cold. An intimation of things distant, but none the less disturbing, oppressed her with a faintly sick feeling. Like a heavy weight, a stone weight, just where, she knew, was her stomach.