"I shall not sing scales," said Estelle firmly.
"I thought one always had to," put in Ragna.
"Not with a voice like mine; my voice is far beyond scales."
"That is very satisfactory, dear Fröken," said the old lady. "My dear," this to Ragna, "will you give me the largest tartlet,--the one with the most jam on it?"
"I hope," remarked Fru Bjork, "that you will do nothing so silly as to train for the stage, Estelle." She was about to add, "at your age, too," but refrained.
"Why should it be silly, Fru Bjork, if I feel it to be my vocation? Why should I not give utterance to the sacred fire that is within me? Is it not my duty to humanity?"
Fru Bjork found no answer to this, and held her peace, but Ragna was more daring.
"Do you think you have a stage presence, Estelle?" she asked.
"Why not? I am tall--besides, it is much more important to have voice and temperament. I feel it my mission to redeem the stage. Why do you ask me such a question?"
Ragna was saved from answering by the old lady.
"My dear! My dear! Pick me out something before they carry the fruit around! Last evening that man with the whiskers at the end of the table took the last banana, before I had a chance."
Ragna rose from the table in disgust. She longed to be back in the past again with Prince Mirko--all these present things seemed so vulgar and common by contrast, and yet until now, they had amused her! She looked about the dining-room and despised the men in it. A stout German with his napkin tucked in at the neck, sprawled over his plate, emitting hideous grunts and smacks, at the other end of the room, two well-nourished Englishmen sat with their families like self-satisfied roosters with their feathered following. At her own table, an anæmic and dreamy-eyed art-student played with his dessert, an Italian Commendatore with white whiskers, and a rotund waistcoat, beamed on his neighbours, and a gentleman with marvellous tight striped trousers, a still more marvellous moustache and a flamboyant necktie, was lighting a cigarette.
"How vulgar, how horrid they are!" thought Ragna.
It seemed to Ragna that she had opened her eyes on a new Heaven and a new Earth. As the days went on and lengthened into weeks, she grew so dependent on the companionship of Prince Mirko, that if a day passed without her seeing him, she felt blank and as though defrauded of a pleasure that was hers by right. A curious change, too, had taken place in her mental or rather sentimental attitude, for whereas at first, she had dreaded his recalling the, to her, unforgetable episode of the last evening on the _Norje_, she now felt secretly piqued by his lack of memory, and by his mere friendliness. It was as though she were disappointed in not having to ward off unwelcome--or too welcome--advances. The passionate impulsiveness of him, as she remembered it, but threw into greater relief the measured comradeship of his present attitude towards her. A more experienced woman would have suspected him of "parti pris," for a purpose, but Ragna saw nothing but genuine indifference, and her feminine vanity urged her to force him into recognition of the womanhood he had been instrumental in awakening. Therefore the simple almost childlike relations of the first days had insensibly given way to a state of tension which Mirko understood and was ready to turn to his advantage, but which Ragna did not understand in the least. Here her real innocence was the weak point in her armour. Several days passed thus, each waiting for a sign. Mirko with perspicacity, and Ragna with a sort of subconscious expectation.