"I'm blushing at your curiosity, that's what I'm blushing at," returned Ragna, angry at having betrayed herself. "And if you went to the Sisters they'd tell you it was ill-bred to ask so many questions and pry into what isn't your business!" Afraid of betraying herself further she got up and left them.
The three girls had been sitting on a rock, not far from the house, where they had long been accustomed to take their work on summer afternoons. The younger girls stared at each other thunderstruck, as Ragna walked away.
"Well," said Lotte, "it's rude to ask a civil question, and it's all right to get up and go off in a temper. What is the matter with her anyway? I'm sure I wish the old Prince had never spoken to her at all, it has turned her head, being taken notice of, that's what it is!"
Ingeborg said nothing; she merely bit off her thread reflectively as she followed Ragna's retreating figure with her eyes. Less impulsive than Lotte, and endowed with a finer intuition, she felt that if Ragna were keeping something from them it would be useless to try and drag it out of her, and not only that, she realized as Lotte did not, that each of us has his or her own little "Secret Garden," of memory and fancy, of which no hand, however intimate, may open the gate. But vaguely conscious of this, herself, she felt how useless it would be to explain it to Lotte, whose frank curiosity knew no such restraint.
Lotte stitched on viciously, indignant at the snub she had received, and giving vent to her feelings in intermittent monologue.
"She thinks us ninnies or children, that's what she does, but she's not so awfully grown up, after all! She's not nineteen yet, and I'm sixteen, and you're nearly fifteen. Oh, yes, we're not good enough for her Ladyship to talk to; she's used to Princes and Kings and Popes, she is! And she thinks she has come back to teach us her fine French manners!"
Ragna walked on, away from her sisters and away from the house. Her path lay some way through the woods, then across two or three pastures and out to a rocky point overlooking the fjord. She marched on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, consumed with vexation for having been so easily led on to retort. Of course Lotte had been annoying, but she had always been a bundle of curiosity. And how sharp the child was! "I must be a transparent fool," thought poor Ragna, "if any child can see through me like that!"