“What answer should you have? Ha, ha, ha, perhaps you do not want me!”
“Oh, Petra, you know very well I want you. But I do not believe I can be sure of you!”
“Indeed, Gunnar, I will be very, very true to you!”
He stood still a moment.
“Let me look you in the face, Petra!”
“Why so?”
“I want to see whether you really mean it.”
“Do you think I would trifle with you, Gunnar?”
She was angry, and loosened her kerchief.
“Well, Petra, if it is real serious earnest, then give me a kiss on it; for it is plain enough what that means.”
“Are you mad?” She closed the kerchief and walked on.
“Wait, Petra, wait! You do not understand this. If we are sweethearts”—
“Oh, how absurd you are!”
“Why, I ought to know what is customary, I should think, for so far as worldly experience is concerned, I am far in advance of you. Think of all I have seen”—
“Yes, you have seen like a dunce, and you talk just as you have seen.”
“Come, then, what do you think it means to
