Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/180

 "You must not look, Harald, do you understand? My trunk is so untidy."

"Very well," I said, and stared irritably out of the window. At last I heard her get up and come towards me. She handed me the letter. The rather stiff paper was crumpled and twisted and bent in a strange way.

"I suppose you have used it for packing," I remarked bitterly, and held it up to her.

She did not answer, but smiled in a very peculiar way, which suited her admirably and both irritated me and made me madly in love.

"It does not seem that you handle my letters with the same care, or keep them as well, as those of Mr. Stephensen!"

Minna bit her lip, and peeped up at me with a teasing but still caressing look. I did not understand how she could take this matter in such a way, and should surely have been as angry as a Turk, had I not had a feeling of uncertainty and a suspicion that I was making a fool of myself.

"But you are quite forgetting to examine it, Harald," she said, as I continued to hold the letter towards her.

"Oh, you are quite right," I decided, without deigning to look at the letter, which I threw upon the floor.

Minna bent down very quietly and picked it up.

She gave me a reproachful glance, which made me ashamed, and I looked away, though I still thought myself right. Then, without withdrawing her eyes from me, but with a more and more tender smile, she unbuttoned the upper part of her blouse, loosened her bodice at the top, and let the letter slide down into her bosom, where it disappeared with the rosy shimmer of the last sunbeams which were glowing through the little room. I took her eagerly into my arms and covered her face and neck with