IV
The next morning was Sunday. Gunnar took his bath, put on his Sunday clothes, and came down into the kitchen, smiling with a secret happiness. It was a mild, bright day; he was going to get his car and take Ingeborg for a drive.
All morning he was busy in the garage where his sedan had been stored for the winter. Then he took off his overalls, scrubbed his hands, got some lunch in a dairy, and drove to the house. He let himself in with his latchkey, and went downstairs to the basement. In the kitchen Oscar was sitting alone, reading the newspaper. Not caring to disturb him, Gunnar went quietly away, looking for Ingeborg. He heard Mrs. Anders down in the cellar, shaking up the furnace.
Going upstairs again, in the front hall he stopped to listen, and he heard quick little footsteps overhead. He ran up the stairs to the next floor, and there he found Ingeborg, carrying a pile of clean towels.
“I’ve brought my car,” he announced. “I’m going to take you out.”
“Oh!” said Ingeborg.
“Come on!” said Gunnar. “Get your hat and coat. There’s a heater in my car.”
“I’ve got to ask Uncle Oscar—”
“No, you haven’t,” interrupted Gunnar. “None of his business! You’re working all the time. You can go out on Sunday afternoon if you like.”
“I can’t go without asking.”
He was not angry now at her old-fashioned, foreign ways. Indeed, they pleased him.
“Well, I’ll ask your uncle,” he said.
He went down into the basement, but before he got to the kitchen he passed the open door of Ingeborg’s dark little room, and in there he saw her hat and coat lying on the bed.
“He might say no, that old squarehead,” thought Gunnar; so he took the hat and coat, and ran upstairs again. “It’s all right,” he assured the girl.
If there was a row when they got home, he didn’t care. By that time he would have told Ingeborg that they were going to be married, and Oscar could say what he liked.
Ingeborg did not doubt his assurance. She put on her hat and coat, there in the hall.
“I don’t look so very nice,” she said.
“You’ll do,” replied Gunnar.
He could have caught her in his arms that moment, she was so dear and so funny in that hat and coat!
“When we get married,” he thought, “I’ll buy new clothes for her—stylish clothes. She’s pretty—prettier than any one else.”
He was in a hurry to get her out of the house, before any one could stop them.
“Hurry up!” he said.
She got into the car beside him, and they set off.
“Oh, how fast you go!” she said.
“Haven’t you ever been in a car before?” asked Gunnar.
“Oh, yes—Uncle Oscar brought us from the ship in a taxicab.”
“This is my own car,” said Gunnar. “In the summer I use it every day.”
He knew where he wanted to go—out of the city, and across the bridge to Long Island. It was not a pleasant neighborhood, but the rush of wind against her face, and Gunnar beside her, made her heart sing. He turned down a street gloomy and empty, lined with shuttered warehouses, and at the end of it he stopped the car.
“Here!” he said. “This is where I work.”
“Oh, what a big place!” said Ingeborg.
“I’m a foreman,” said Gunnar.[Pg 512]
Then, even as he spoke, he saw what was going to happen. If he married Ingeborg, he wouldn’t be a foreman much longer. Mabel would see to that. He would lose his job. He would have to give up his car, give up the fine room, the good money. He could find another job in another factory, but not as foreman. That wasn’t so easy. He would have to go to work under another man.
For a time he sat staring before him, his blue eyes grown hard. He had not thought of this before. To give up so much, and of his own free will! He was terribly downcast.
Then Ingeborg stirred beside him, and he turned to her with a queer look. His eyes were narrowed; he stared and stared at her. She glanced at him, and then, with an uncertain little smile, bent her head. There she sat, with her small hands folded—patient, a little confused; and she was so dear to him—dearer than anything else in the world! He was glad to give up all these things for her. He would give his life for her, his beloved maiden, his little angel!
He looked up and down the empty street. There was no one in sight. He caught her in his arms, held her tight, and kissed her pale cheek.
“Don’t!” she cried.
He paid no attention to that. He laughed, because he was so proud and so happy; and, putting his hand under her chin, he turned her head and kissed her mouth.
“You’re my girl!” he said.
“Gunnar Jespersen!” she said. “How dare you treat me like this?”
Her eyes were looking into his, and he was astounded by the stern anger in them. She was not gentle now, not patient. Such a hot color there was in her cheeks, such a light in her eyes!
“Dare?” said Gunnar. “Do you think I’m afraid of you?”
But he let her go; for he was afraid, and ashamed, and terribly hurt.
“Gunnar Jespersen!” she said. “Take me home!”
“You came out with me quick enough,” argued Gunnar.
“Take me home!” repeated Ingeborg.
“You can’t talk to me like that,” said Gunnar. “I’ll go when I’m ready.”
But, just the same, he had to obey her. He turned the car and started back. He was sick to the soul with shame and disappointment. He had offered her everything, and she returned him only scorn and anger. Never before in his life had any woman been able to hurt him so. Whether it was anger or pure sorrow that he felt, he did not know; but it seemed to him that he could not endure it.
He wanted to say something that would hurt her; but when he looked at her, he could not. She had grown pale again, and sat very straight, looking before her, so stern and cold, and still dear to him. He could not endure it.
He stopped the car before a drug store.
“Going to telephone,” he said.
When he came out again, he felt that he had paid her back.
“You’re not the only one. If you don’t want me, all right! There’s somebody else that wants me—somebody who’s rich, with a fine house, and pearls. What do I care for you?”
In his heart he said this to Ingeborg, but not aloud. He dared not. For all his great anger against her, there was something in her, some strange dignity and power, that checked him.
He took her to the corner of his street.
“All right!” he said. “Now I’m going somewhere else.”
He did not want to look at her again, but, as she walked off, he had to look. There she went, so slender and little, so unattainable!
“What have I done, anyhow?” he asked himself, with a sort of amazement.
He did not know, and yet a terrible sense of guilt oppressed him; and because he would not be humbled, not by any human creature, not by his own soul, he would go to Mabel. He was reckless now.
Unfortunately, Mabel would not be expecting him for several hours. He drove about at random. At first he made up his mind that he would never go back to the house where Ingeborg was. Never mind about the clothes he had there! Let them go—what did he care?
As the dusk came, and his bitterness still grew, he changed his mind and turned back there. He was going to tell Ingeborg, going to tell all of them. He wanted to do some reckless, arrogant thing, to show them what a fellow he was.
The most extraordinary ideas came into his head. He thought that perhaps he would go down into the basement and tell[Pg 513] Oscar that he wanted to buy that piano. He must do something to show them, and something to give rest to his inexplicable pain.
He strode up the steps, unlocked the door, and opened it with a violence that sent it crashing back against the wall. What did he care if he broke it? He could pay for it.
As he entered, a shadowy little form came up the stairs.
“Ach, Gott, what have you done?” whispered Mrs. Anders.
He closed the door and stood leaning against it.
“What d’you mean?” he asked.
She spoke to him rapidly in Danish, but he had long ago forgotten the language of his fathers.
“Speak English!” he said. “I don’t understand that stuff.”
“Ach, what a spectacle!” said Mrs. Anders. “Her Uncle Oscar, he finds she is vent out, and she will not say who vas it. Ach, so mad is he!” She wiped her eyes on her apron. “It is a badness dat you do so, Gunnar Jespersen!”
He wanted to laugh, but he could not. Something of the same fear he had felt for Ingeborg he felt now for Mrs. Anders—the mystic reverence for a good woman that was in his soul.
“Well, I’ll tell the old squarehead,” he said. “What’s the harm if she does go out with a fellow?”
“Hush!” said Mrs. Anders sternly. “It is a badness when you speak so of the Uncle Oscar. He is a goot man. He gifs us a home.”
Gunnar had to understand that, for in his own heart there was an echo of that simple fidelity. Let him try to laugh if he would, the old austerities were deathless in him. He stood before a good woman, and he was abashed.
He thought no more of going boastfully and arrogantly to Oscar Anders. Anders was the master of this house, as Gunnar’s father had been master of his. He was not to be affronted.
“Where’s Ingeborg?” asked Gunnar, speaking very low.
“You shall not tr-rouble my Ingeborg!” said Mrs. Anders.
“I can speak to her, can’t I?” he inquired sullenly.
Mrs. Anders looked at him in silence for a time.
“She sits up on the stairs,” she said. “Her Uncle Oscar is too mad, so he yells that she cannot come downstairs for it.”
Gunnar set his foot on the lowest stair. He did not want to go to Ingeborg. What had he to say to her? But he had to go. He went unwillingly, slowly.
“Well, what have I done, anyhow?” he asked himself.