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JENNY

very nice looking." It dawned upon her that it might be Gunnar, and she got up, but, suddenly changing her mind, wrapped herself up in a rug and sat down in the deepest of her armchairs.

Mrs. Schlessinger departed, pleased to announce a visitor. Showing Gunnar into the room, she remained an instant smiling by the door before closing it.

He squeezed her hand, almost hurting her, and greeted her with a beaming smile:

"I thought I had better come up here to see what kind of a place you had settled on. It is rather a dull part of the world you have chosen, but it is healthy anyway." He shook the water from his hat as he spoke.

"You must have some tea and something to eat," said Jenny, making a movement as if meaning to rise, but remained sitting, saying with a blush: "Do you mind ringing the bell?"

Heggen ate with excellent appetite, talking all the while. He was delighted with Berlin; he had lived in a workmen's quarter—the Moabit—and spoke with equal enthusiasm about the social democrats and the military, for "there is something grand and manly about it, and the one stimulates the other." He had been over some great factories and had studied night life, having met a Norwegian engineer who was on his honeymoon and a Norwegian couple with two lovely daughters, who were dying to see a little vice at close quarters. They had been to National, Riche, and to Amorsaale, and the ladies had enjoyed it all immensely.

"But I offended them, I'm afraid—asked Miss Paulsen to come home with me late one evening."

"Gunnar, how could you!"

"Well, I was not quite sober, you understand; it was only a joke, you know. If by any chance she had consented, I should have been in an awful fix. Might have had to marry a little girl who amuses herself sniffing at such things—no, thank