man in a fur-coat, just as we passed him he turned round. I only saw his eyes, they met mine with a quiet, piercing glance. I knew at once it was the actor from the other night, the 'Sheik' from Suleima. I grew quite faint, my blood seemed to stand still, rushing a moment after to my head and dyeing my face scarlet. The whole thing only lasted a second, for he disappeared almost immediately. Fortunately mother did not notice my absurd behaviour. I am a fool! What in the world was the matter with me? By chance a stranger gives me a casual look in the street, and I am paralysed. I am furious with myself. I should like to give myself a good beating, and I am furious with him too. This conceited actor imagines, of course, that he has made an overwhelming impression on me, made a new conquest and a victory very easily won.
How curiously things happen in life. I had not given this man a thought since that romantic Suleima dream; as a matter of fact I had quite forgotten him, and then this morning I meet him in the street, and this afternoon I hear him discussed.
I went to a birthday party at my cousin Emmy Lorentzen. Emmy, who is thirty-seven years of age, and the widow of a wine merchant, is one of the greatest chatterboxes I know. Under a mask of loving sympathy and in the sweetest way she says the most scandalous things about everybody in the town, about the people she knows and those
