Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/99

 content with their dirt and mouldy straw, and hardly even wish for anything better, it only shows how little in reality they are removed from dumb brutes, swine, for example, in whom all the feelings of the heart are undoubtedly preserved in unadulterated swinishness."

"But it is no use for us to talk about it," she concluded, gaily, "you have once for all been irremediably bitten by some crazy digger of ditches, and it is folly on my part to try and convince you. This illusion will turn to stern reality one of these days. Only wait!"

She laughed—and as she sat there in her bright, distinguished-looking costume, self-controlled in every line of her slim figure, from the tip of her little patent leather shoe to the gigantic fancy straw hat, which threw shadows like a lace veil over the upper part of her pale face with the ruddy lips—one might very well doubt that she belonged to the same race of humanity as the heavy grey creatures clad in homespun, toilers of the earth, among whom she was condemned to live.

Emanuel, who felt hurt by her words, made a sign as if to go. Before doing so he turned towards her once again and said:

"I should like to know what it was you wished to say to me—you are forgetting that you have not told me yet."

Miss Ragnhild coloured slightly. She had had no other reason for calling him than that she