Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/116

 lenient. Unless this confidence is frankly answered, how shall I benefit by it? That I value your judgment you know beforehand, and you will also see it by my letter to Mr. Stephensen.—Your friend,

"."

Confused though I was by the many conflicting emotions caused by the reading of this letter, I did not at first try to come to any clear comprehension of it, but at once opened the letter with which two days before I had been tempted to tamper. I did not doubt that it would contain observations about myself.

I quickly ran through the opening sentences, with the usual excuses for not having written for so long, and the remarks about the weather and the country. A little more attention was bestowed upon a short, not very complimentary, description of the honourable family with whom she was living, and I noticed that she did not try to play the novelist, a part which young letter-writing ladies—especially in the governess line—are apt to indulge in on such occasions. After this I read with a palpitating heart the following lines—

"I have made acquaintance with a young student by the name of Fenger, a countryman of yours. It was, as you will understand, this fact which first recommended him to me, and made us more quickly acquainted than is usually the case. I very often meet him at the Hertzes. He is not exactly handsome, but has one of those frank fair faces which please one, especially when he smiles. He is very tall, but stoops a little, and sometimes it seems to me that his chest is not very strong. I should be very grieved if such was the case. He shows me so much attention that