I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room.

“But I get the sunshine,” he said, blushing.

I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges from the purple clouds at evening.

Big child that you are, how I love you!

But I will never, never start a home with you!

Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the place.  If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing.

The man comes from a big estate.  If he is content to cultivate my cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some undiscovered faults.  But I really cannot undertake to make minute inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen.

His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others.  We examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as though they had been fashion plates from Paris.  To my silent amusement, I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she thought smells could be photographed, too.

Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our peace of mind.  On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance.

Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen.

Certainly!  I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour at table.  But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, then we shall not be always smelling him.

* * * * *

Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so powerfully influence our senses.

I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the help of my nose alone; that is, if I passed near enough to him to sniff his atmosphere.  I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to me as flowers; I judge them by their smell.  I remember once a young English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each time he passed the back of my chair.  Luckily Richard was there!  For the same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me—­and equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses.

Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of the young Englishman.

Men ought never to use perfumes.  The Creator has provided them.  But with women it is different....

* * * * *

To-day is my birthday.  No one here knows it.  Besides, what woman would enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday?  Only Lillie Rothe, I am sure!...