Quicksand
odd or unkind of you or him. Come now, Helga, it isn‘t this foolishness about race. Not here in Denmark. You‘ve never spoken of it before. It can‘t be just that. You‘re too sensible. It must be something else. I wish you‘d try to explain. You don‘t perhaps like Olsen ?”
Helga had been silent, thinking what a severe wrench to Herr Dahl‘s ideas of decency was this conversation. For he had an almost fanatic regard for reticence, and a peculiar shrinking from what he looked upon as indecent exposure of the emotions.
“Just what is it, Helga?” he asked again, because the pause had grown awkward, for him.
“I can‘t explain any better than I have,” she had begun tremulously, “it‘s just something-something deep down inside of me,” and had turned away to hide a face convulsed by threatening tears.
But that, Uncle Poul had remarked with
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