The Captain's Doll

'Hannele!'

'Ja--a.'

'Wo bist du?'

'Hier.'

'Wo dann?'

Hannele did not lift her head from her work. She sat in a low
chair under a reading-lamp, a basket of coloured silk pieces beside
her, and in her hands a doll, or mannikin, which she was dressing.
She was doing something to the knee of the mannikin, so that the
poor little gentleman flourished head downwards with arms wildly
tossed out. And it was not at all seemly, because the doll was a
Scotch soldier in tight-fitting tartan trews.

There was a tap at the door, and the same voice, a woman's,
calling:

'Hannele?'

'Ja--a!'

'Are you here? Are you alone?' asked the voice in German.

'Yes--come in.'

Hannele did not sound very encouraging. She turned round her doll
as the door opened, and straightened his coat. A dark-eyed young
woman peeped in through the door, with a roguish coyness. She was
dressed fashionably for the street, in a thick cape-wrap, and a
little black hat pulled down to her ears.

'Quite, quite alone!' said the newcomer, in a tone of wonder.
'Where is he, then?'

'That I don't know,' said Hannele.

'And you sit here alone and wait for him? But no! That I call
courage! Aren't you afraid?' Mitchka strolled across to her
friend.

'Why shall I be afraid?' said Hannele curtly.

'But no! And what are you doing? Another puppet! He is a good
one, though! Ha--ha--ha! HIM! It is him! No--no--that is too
beautiful! No--that is too beautiful, Hannele. It is him--exactly
him. Only the trousers.'

'He wears those trousers too,' said Hannele, standing her doll on
her knee. It was a perfect portrait of an officer of a Scottish
regiment, slender, delicately made, with a slight, elegant stoop of
the shoulders and close-fitting tartan trousers. The face was
beautifully modeled, and a wonderful portrait, dark-skinned, with
a little, close-cut, dark mustache, and wide-open dark eyes, and
that air of aloofness and perfect diffidence which marks an officer
and a gentleman.