held the pale little face against her and compelled the child to speak, to speak. . . .
"It's nothing," said Gerdy, through her sobs. "I didn't enjoy myself."
"You didn't? Why, what happened?"
"I hardly danced at all."
"Why not?"
"Mamma, it's better to tell you plainly. I'm so unhappy! It's about Johan . . ."
"Erzeele? Has he proposed to you?"
Gerdy shook her head:
"No, but . . ."
"But what?"
"In the winter . . . skating . . . I thought he was fond of me. . . . It's my own fault: it was silly of me, it was silly. . . . It wasn't anything. . . . He was just the same to me as to other girls; and I thought, I thought . . . It's nothing, Mamma, it's my own fault, but I thought . . . Mamma, I oughtn't to take it so much to heart . . . but it makes me very unhappy. . . . He danced with me, once. . . . But he danced with Mathilde the whole time. . . . He was always with her. . . . People were talking about it. . . . It was just as if she was mad, as if she didn't think . . . that she oughtn't to behave like that . . . with Johan. . . . It struck Uncle Henri too: I could see it by his face. They were together the whole evening and . . . you understand. . . . He paid her attentions . . . shamelessly . . . the way he does to married women. . . . With girls he's different. . . . I hated him for a moment. But then he came and asked me, for that one dance . . . and then I thought . . . I oughtn't to have thought it. It's my own fault. I'm very unhappy, Mamma. . . . Uncle Henri was very angry too . . . with Mathilde . . . because she
