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 "I won't talk of reputation after all these doings of yours."

"No, better not speak about my reputation. You are quite right there. At home, in Christiania, I have spoilt my reputation past mending, once and for all." She laughed hysterically. "Damn it all! I don't care."

"I don't understand you, Cesca darling. You don't care for any of those men. Why do you want.… And as to Ahlin, can't you see he is in earnest? Norman Douglas, too, was in earnest. You don't know what you are doing. I really do believe, child, that you've no instincts at all."

Francesca put away brush and comb and looked at Jenny's hairdressing in the glass. She tried to retain her defiant little smile, but it faded away and her eyes filled with tears.

"I had a letter this morning, too." Her voice trembled. "From Berlin, from Borghild." Jenny rose from the dressing-table. "Yes, perhaps you had better get ready. Will you put the kettle on, or do you think we'd better cook the artichokes first?" She began to make the bed. "We might call Marietta—but don't you think we had better do it ourselves?"

"Borghild writes that Hans Hermann was married last week. His wife is already expecting a child."

Jenny put the matchbox on the table. She glanced at Francesca's miserable little face and then went quietly up to her.

"It is that singer, Berit Eck, you know, he was engaged to." Francesca spoke in a faint voice, leaning for an instant against her friend, and then began to arrange the sheets with trembling hands.

"But you knew they were engaged—more than a year ago."

"Yes—let me do that, Jenny; you lay the table. I know, of course, that you knew all about it."

Jenny laid the table for four. Francesca put the counterpane on the bed and brought the roses. She stood fumbling with her blouse, then pulled out a letter from inside it and twisted it between her fingers.