Falander was at home studying a part one afternoon, when he was disturbed by a gentle tapping, two double-raps, at his door. He jumped up, hastily donned a coat and opened.

"Agnes! This is a rare visit!"

"I had to come and see you, it's so damned slow!"

"What dreadful language!"

"Let me curse! It relieves my feelings."

"Hm! hm!"

"Give me a cigar; I haven't had a smoke these last six weeks. This education makes me frantic."

"Is he so severe?"

"Curse him!"

"For shame, Agnes!"

"I've been forbidden to smoke, to curse, to drink punch, to go out in the evening! But wait until we are married! I'll let him see!"

"Is he really serious about it?"

"Absolutely! Look at this handkerchief!"

"A. R. with a crown and nine balls."

"Our initials are the same and he's making me use his design. Isn't it lovely?"

"Yes, very nice. It's gone as far as that, has it?"

The angel, dressed in blue, threw herself on the sofa and puffed at her cigar. Falander looked at her body as if he were making an estimate, and said:

"Will you have a glass of punch?"

"Rather!"

"Are you in love with your fiancÉ?"

"He doesn't belong to the class of men with whom one can really be in love. But I don't know. Love? Hm! What is love?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Oh, you know what I mean. He's very respectable, awfully respectable, but, but, but...."

"But?"

"He's so proper."

She looked at Falander with a smile which would have saved the absent fiancÉ, if he could have seen it.

"He isn't demonstrative enough?" asked Falander curiously, in an unsteady voice.

She drank her glass of punch, paused, shook her head, and said with a theatrical sigh:

"No!"

The reply seemed to satisfy Falander; it obviously relieved him. He continued his cross-examination.

"It may be a long time before you can get married. He's never played a single part yet."

"No, I know."

"Won't you find the waiting dull?"

"One must be patient."

I must use the thumbscrew, thought Falander.

"I suppose you know that Jenny and I are lovers?"

"The ugly, old hag!"

A whole shower of white northern lights flamed across her face and every muscle twitched, as if she were under the influence of a galvanic battery.

"She isn't as old as all that," said Falander coldly. "Have you heard that the waiter Gustav is going to play Don Diego in the new piece, and that Rehnhjelm has been given the part of his servant? The waiter is bound to have a success, for the part plays itself; but poor Rehnhjelm will die with shame."

"Good heavens! Is it true?"

"It's true enough."

"It shan't happen!"

"Who's to prevent it?"

She jumped up from the sofa, emptied her glass and began to sob wildly.

"Oh! How bitter the world is, how bitter!" she sobbed. "It's just as if an evil power were spying on us, finding out our wishes, merely to cross them; discerning our hopes, so as to shatter them; anticipating our thoughts so as to paralyse them. If it were possible to long for evil to happen to oneself, one ought to do it just for the sake of making a fool of that power."

"Quite true, my dear; therefore one should always be prepared for a bad ending. But that's not the worst. I'll give you a thought which will comfort you. You know that every success you attain entails someone else's failure; if you are given a part to play, some other woman is disappointed; it makes her writhe like a worm trodden under foot, and without knowing it you have committed a wrong; therefore, even happiness is poisoned. Be comforted in misfortune by the thought that every piece of ill-luck which falls to your share is equivalent to a good action, even though it be a good action committed without your knowing it; and the thought of a good action is the only pure enjoyment which is given to us mortals."

"I don't want to do any good actions! I don't want any pure joys! I have the same right to success as everybody else! And I—will—be successful!"

"At any price?"

"I won't play your mistress's maid at any price."

"You're jealous! Learn to bear failure gracefully! That's greater—and much more interesting."

"Tell me one thing! Is she in love with you?"

"I'm afraid she loves me only too well."

"And you?"

"I? I shall never love any woman but you!"

He seized her hand.

She jumped up from the sofa, showing her stockings.

"Do you believe in what is called love?" she asked, gazing at him with distended pupils.

"I believe there are several kinds of love."

She crossed the room towards the door.

"Do you love me wholly and entirely?" She put her hand on the door-handle.

He pondered for two seconds. Then he replied:

"Your soul is evil, and I don't love evil."

"I don't care a fig for my soul! Do you love me? Me?"

"Yes! So deeply...."

"Why did you send me Rehnhjelm?"

"Because I wanted to find out what life without you would be like."

"Did you lie when you said you were tired of me?"

"Yes, I lied."

"Oh! You old devil!"

She took the key out of the lock and he drew down the blind.