But Olga was getting weary of all this, and had lost her shyness now. Moreover, she had a red ribbon at her throat, like any lady, and the pin was altogether hidden.
"I must make her look up to me properly," thought Rolandsen. And he said, "Now I did think something would come of this. My former sweetheart, Marie van Loos, she's broidered and worked me all over with initials till I'm a wonder to see; there's Olga Rolandsen, or what's all but the same, on every stitch of my things. And I took it as a sign from Heaven. But I must be going. My best respects...."
And Rolandsen waved his hat and walked off, ending on a lordly note. Surely, after that, it would be strange if she did not think and wonder over him a little now.
What was it that had happened? Even the parish clerk's daughter had refused him. Well and good! But was there not much to indicate that it was all a sham? Why had she been sitting outside the door at all if it were not that she had seen him coming? And why had she decked herself out with red ribbons like a lady?
But, a few evenings later, Rolandsen's conceit was shattered. From his window he saw Olga go down to Mack's store. She stayed there till quite late, and when she went home, Frederik Mack and his sister Elise walked up with her. And here, of course, the lordly Rolandsen should have kept calm, and merely hummed a little tune, or drummed with his fingers carelessly, and kept his thoughts on his work. Instead of which, he snatched up his hat and made off at once towards the woods. He hurried round in a wide curve, and came out on the road far ahead of the three. Then he stopped to get his breath, and walked down to meet them.
But the three took an unreasonable time; Rolandsen could neither hear nor see them. He whistled and trolled a bit of a song, as if they might sit somewhere in the woods and watch him. At last he saw them coming, walking slowly, dawdling unpardonably, seeing it was late at night, and they should have been hurrying towards their respective homes. Rolandsen, great man, walks towards them, with a long stalk of grass in his mouth and a sprig of willow in his buttonhole; the two men raised their hats as they came up, and the ladies nodded.