When Camilla had entered her room, she pulled up the blind, leaned her
brow against the cool pane, and hummed Elizabeth's song from "The
Fairy-hill." At sunset a light breeze had begun to blow and a few tiny,
white clouds, illumined by the moon, were driven towards Camilla. For
a long while she stood regarding them; her eye followed them from a
far distance, and she sang louder and louder as they drew nearer, kept
silent a few seconds while they disappeared above her, then sought
others, and followed them too. With a little sigh she pulled down the
blind. She went to the dressing table, rested her elbows against her
clasped hands and regarded her own picture in the mirror without
really seeing it.

She was thinking of a tall young man, who carried a very delicate,
tiny, blackdressed lady in his arms; she was thinking of a tall man,
who steered his small ship in between cliffs and rocks in a
devastating gale. She heard a whole conversation over again. She
blushed: Eugene Carlson might have thought that you were paying court
to him! With a little jealous association of ideas she continued: No
one would ever run after Clara in a wood in the rainstorm, she would
never have invited a stranger--literally asked him--to sail with her.
"Lady to her fingertips," Carlson had said of Clara; that really was a
reprimand for you, you peasant-girl Camilla! Then she undressed with
affected slowness, went to bed, took a small elegantly bound book from
the bookshelf near by and opened the first page. She read through a
short hand-written poem with a tired, bitter expression
on her face, then let the book drop to the floor and burst into tears;
afterwards she tenderly picked it up again, put it back in its place
and blew out the candle; lay there for a little while gazing
disconsolately at the moonlit blind, and finally went to sleep.