III
“Well, Gunnar Jespersen,” said Oscar, getting up, “your breakfast you can have downstairs at seven o’clock.”
“Good night!” returned Gunnar briefly.
But he did not have a good night in that fine room with a piano in it.
He got up early the next morning—too early. With the shades pulled down and the gas lighted, the parlor had a jaded look, as if it were tired and sullen, like himself. He dressed and went out into the hall, and downstairs to the basement.
At the kitchen door he stopped and looked in, and there he saw Ingeborg cooking the breakfast. She was as neat as a pin in her dark dress and white apron, and with her smooth coronet of braids. She was pale, and her eyes were red from weeping. A sad, quiet little thing she was, but so dear to him, all in a moment! How good she was, he thought, like a dear little angel! If only he could turn to her as his refuge!
He saw everything so clearly now. Here was his good angel, to save his soul from ruin. He had terrible need of her, of her goodness and gentleness and patience.
He went into the room. She turned at his footstep, and he came close to her and stood before her, looking down into her face. Her eyes, shining with clear truth, were lifted to his, but she did not smile. It was as if she knew how desperate was his case.
“Ingeborg!” he said, very low. “Dear little thing!”
She turned away her head, and a faint color rose in her cheeks.[Pg 510]
“Such nice herrings for your breakfast!” she said.
It was part of her blessedness that she could think of things like that—safe and homely things. She was the innocent little handmaiden, destined to make a home for his stormy spirit. He caught both her hands.
“Look at me!” he commanded.
But she shook her head, confused and smiling.
“Ingeborg!” he began, but just then there came a stamping and a great voice calling out:
“Hey! You Ingeborg! I’m ready!”
She ran to the stove and looked into the coffeepot. Then she began to put the breakfast on the table, and Oscar and Gunnar sat down together.
“I’ll keep the room,” said Gunnar.
“That room’s for a married couple,” objected Oscar, “not for a young fellow like you.”
“I can pay for it,” said Gunnar.
“I guess you want to play on that piano!” cried Oscar, with a shout of laughter, and Gunnar laughed, too, because he was happy.
The sun was up when he left for his work. It was a sharp March morning, with a wind that blew the sky clear and clean.
“The spring is coming,” thought Gunnar. “On Sunday, if it’s a nice day, maybe I’ll get out my car and take Ingeborg for a ride.”
He thought about that with a masterful joy. She was a little angel, but she was human enough to falter beneath his bold gaze. He was a conqueror again.
It was late in the afternoon when Mabel came in. She came like a queen, for wasn’t she the daughter of the superintendent? She beckoned to Gunnar with her gloved hand, and he left his work and came to her; but not like a subject to a queen. He stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck, his fair hair damp with sweat, his hands blackened, but he was as cool and easy as she.
They stood apart in the great room that trembled and throbbed with the beat of machinery, and the men looked at them sidelong; but she was not abashed. She could do as she pleased.
“Gunnar,” she said, “I’ll wait for you by the bridge and drive you part of the way home.”
“You’ll have a nice long wait, then,” said Gunnar. “I won’t be finished here for another hour.”
“Perhaps they can manage to get on without you, if you leave a little early,” she suggested with a slow smile.
“Maybe they could,” said Gunnar; “but I’m not coming.”
It was just this insolence that she liked in Gunnar. It was a challenge to her.
“I want to talk to you, Gunnar,” she told him.
“There’s a rush order to get out,” replied Gunnar, “and I can’t leave early.”
At any cost she had to humble him—at any cost!
“Gunnar,” she said, “after all, if it wasn’t for me—”
“Some day I’ll pay you what I owe you,” he interrupted.
They looked steadily at each other.
“You’re a fool!” she said. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here at all.”
Gunnar laughed.
“Do you think I’d starve if I wasn’t here?” he said.
She wished it were like that. She wished she had the power of life and death over him. She would conquer him!
She was silent for a moment, thinking how she could do it. He watched her; and, for all his scorn, his heart beat fast at the sight of her vivid beauty. She was a tall girl, thin, with a dark, narrow face, rouged and powdered, her cruel mouth reddened. She was dressed in a fur coat and high-heeled shoes, with her pearls about her neck. She was for him the very symbol of the new world of money that he so fiercely desired.
“Gunnar!” she said.
“Well?” returned Gunnar.
She was not looking at him now.
“Sunday evening I’m going to be all alone.”
A sort of fear seized them both, for they saw a crisis coming near. Either she must win or he must win.
“What about it?” asked Gunnar.
“You can telephone me on Sunday afternoon,” she said, “if you want to come.”
“Well, I don’t,” declared Gunnar.
She smiled, but it was a queer smile, and she said nothing. Perhaps she herself did not know what she meant.
Gunnar spun around on his heel and went back to his work.[Pg 511]
“Let her wait!” he thought, and laughed aloud. “Here, you, Kelly! Get on the job there!”
He slept well that night, and the next morning, when he came down into the kitchen, he was swaggering a little. Mrs. Anders was there, and he had no chance to talk to Ingeborg; but he looked straight into the girl’s face, and she smiled at him.
“I’ll marry her!” he thought. “Yes, that’s what I’ll do!”
“What you laughing about?” asked Mrs. Anders.
“Oh, nothing!” said Gunnar.
As a matter of fact, he was laughing at the idea of his getting married. Gunnar Jespersen a married man! It was funny, but it made him very happy.
“Such a fine young man!” thought Mrs. Anders. “The best room in the house he takes. He must be rich; and so handsome and strong, and his people from the old country! If there should be a man like that for the little Ingeborg—”