"Ah, but wait till it's summer, and the beeches are out," said Egholm, with bright eyes. "We'll go out one day together. I'll show you it all."
Tears welled up into Anna's eyes. What a marvellous place was this Knarreby, that could so change her husband altogether! Actually running down the platform to meet them as if it had been visitors of rank. And no grumbling or scolding because the train was late.
Egholm was himself moved. He blinked his eyes and looked away.
Out on the Belt, Brodersen's cutter was cruising about. It was on the water early this year. There--it was tacking now. Stood for a moment straight as a white church, and then off on the new tack. Heavens, how it heeled over! Why don't they let go the sheet? Ah, there she was up again! But Egholm had somehow slipped out of his former joyous mood, and said a trifle absently and wearily:
Fru Egholm did not notice his altered tone. She found the moment opportune to put in a word for one that had been left behind in Odense, one that had stood on the platform in the early morning, waving and waving, till he suddenly collapsed, as if the ground had been snatched from under his feet. Was he not to have a share in the promised land?
"Sivert sent his love. He couldn't come, of course, poor child."
The mother started--it was the old voice again. Her rejoicing had hurried her forward along a path that ended in a morass--she must drag her steps back now, uncertain of her way.
Listlessly she followed Egholm's account of some excursion of his own.
"We came round the point to an island that was like a floating forest--Heireøen, it's called. We put in there, alongside a pavilion place, and had steak and onions."
"Wasn't it dreadfully expensive--at a place like that?" Anna's voice was dull and joyless as her own meals and the children's had been every day, Sundays and weekdays alike, as far back as she could remember.
"I don't know. It was Henrik Vang that paid. That is to say--he knew the man who kept the place, and so...."
"Henrik Vang? Oh, that'll be the one you wrote about. His father's got a little eating-house or something."
"Little eating-house! Good Lord!--the finest hotel in the place. First-class restaurant!"
Anna had no grounds for disapproval, but, none the less, she murmured: