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He was paying his usual call to Henriksen's office during the afternoon and was having his daily chat with the old man. As he left he met Aagot outside: she was ready to go. Tidemand accompanied her and carried her valise; her trunk had been sent ahead. It had rained and the streets were muddy. Aagot said several times: "What a disagreeable, mournful day!" They hardly spoke.
Henriksen's agent bid it in for a song. Ole went to London; he made tests with this coffee, washed out the colouring matter, flushed it thoroughly, and dried it again. Finally he had the entire cargo roasted and packed in hermetically sealed zinc boxes. These boxes were brought to Norway after a month of storing; they were unloaded, taken to the warehouse, opened, and sold.
Ole Henriksen's house could be seen in the distance. The sight of that house seemed to bring her to her senses. Whatever could she have said? Had she promised anything? No, no, nothing! And she said with averted eyes: "That which has happened to-day your having kissed me I regret it; God knows I do! I grieve over it " "Then pronounce the sentence!" he answered briskly.
He kissed the bow, looked at it a long time, and kissed it again, trembling in the grip of a silent, deep emotion. It was Ole Henriksen's habit to make his rounds through the business establishment immediately after his early morning coffee.
He passes H. Henriksen's establishment and decides to drop in a moment. The son of the house, a young man in a business suit of cheviot, is still busy at his desk. His eyes are large and blue, although his complexion is rather dark otherwise; a stray wisp of hair sags untidily over his forehead. The tall, somewhat gaunt and taciturn fellow looks about thirty years old.
His eyes were almost in a direct line with the little office window at the end of Henriksen's warehouse; he stared unblinkingly and apparently unseeingly at that particular spot. Irgens was on the point of going over in order to inquire if he perhaps wanted to see Ole Henriksen; he would then be able to turn the conversation to his book and get the old man to express an opinion.
Ole followed him to the door and said: "It wasn't you who didn't care how matters turn out, was it? Well, I am glad you came, anyway." The awkward fellow! This was Ole Henriksen's way of stiffening a comrade's backbone. But Tidemand did not go at once; he stood there with his hand on the door-knob and shifted his eyes nervously from place to place.
Tidemand made his way to H. Henriksen's large warehouse on the wharf where he knew that Ole could be found at this time. Tidemand had passed thirty and was already getting a little grey around the temples. He, too, was dark of hair and beard, but his eyes were brown and had a listless expression.
Event had followed event; Ole Henriksen's suicide had only caused a passing sensation. The shot down there in the young business man's office had not been followed by a very loud or reverberating echo; days and weeks had come and gone, and nobody mentioned it any more. Only Tidemand could not forget. Tidemand was busier than ever.
And now the company was breaking up; no prospects for livening up one's spirits with a little intimate half-hour. Irgens promised to take his revenge on the clique because of the indifference it seemed to show him. Perhaps next week.... Outside Tivoli the company parted. Mrs. Hanka and Aagot walked together down the street. Tidemand came to H. Henriksen's office at ten the next morning.
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