“Do you remember,” said Hans Ravn, “how often you have lent me money, Rafael?” and he drew him on one side.  “Now I am at the top of the tree, now I am married to an heiress, and the most charming girl too; ah, you must know her better.”

“She is pretty as well,” said Rafael.

“And pretty as well—­and good tempered; in fact, you see before you the happiest man in Norway.”

Rafael’s eyes filled.  Ravn put his hands on to his friend’s shoulders.

“Are you not happy, Rafael?”

“Not quite so happy as you, Hans—­”

He left him to speak to some one else, then returned again.

“You say, Hans, that I have often lent you money.”

“Are you pressed?  Do you want some, Rafael?  My dear fellow, how much?”

“Can you spare me two thousand kroner?”

“Here they are.”

“No, no; not in here, come outside.”

“Yes, let us go and have some champagne to celebrate our meeting.  No, not our wives,” he added, as Rafael looked towards where they stood talking.

“Not our wives,” laughed Rafael.  He understood the intention, and now he wished to enjoy his freedom thoroughly.  They came in again merrier and more boisterous than before.

Rafael asked Hans Ravn’s young wife to dance.  Her personal attractions, natural gaiety, and especially her admiration of her husband’s relations, took him by storm.  They danced twice, and laughed and talked together afterwards.

Later in the evening the two friends rejoined their wives, so that they might all sit together at supper.  Even from a distance Rafael could see by Angelika’s face that a storm was brewing.  He grew angry at once.  He had never been blamed more groundlessly.  He was never to have any unalloyed pleasure, then!  But he confined himself to whispering, “Try to behave like other people.”  But that was exactly what she did not mean to do.  He had left her alone, every one had seen it.  She would have her revenge.  She could not endure Hans Ravn’s merriment, still less that of his wife, so she contradicted rudely once, twice, three times, while Hans Ravn’s face grew more and more puzzled.  The storm might have blown over, for Rafael parried each thrust, even turning them into jokes, so that the party grew merrier, and no feelings were hurt; but on this she tried fresh tactics.  As has been already said, she could make a number of annoying gestures, signs and movements which only he understood.  In this way she showed him her contempt for everything which every one, and especially he himself, said.  He could not help looking towards her, and saw this every time he did so, until under the cover of the laughter of the others, with as much fervour and affection as can be put into such a word, “You jade!” he said.

“Jade; was ist das?” asked the bright-eyed foreigner.

This made the whole affair supremely ridiculous.  Angelika herself laughed, and all hoped that the cloud had been finally dispersed.  No!—­as though Satan himself had been at table with them, she would not give in.