A quarter of an hour later Jörgen came out of Anders Krog's room. Mary had just left Mrs. Dawes's, and was opening the door of her own. Jörgen said:
"It seems to me that your father is much better, Miss Krog."
"Yes, he can speak a little now, and also move his arm a little."
Jörgen evidently did not hear.
"Is this your room?—I have never seen it."
She moved out of the way; he looked, and looked again.
"Won't you go in?"
"May I?"
"Certainly."
He approached the threshold and crossed it slowly, she following. Then he stood perfectly still, breathing deeply, she at his side. Was the room hung with lace? He could not collect his impressions ... the bed and the furniture, white with blue, or blue with white; Cupids on the ceiling; paintings, amongst them one of her beautiful mother, with flowers in front of it ... and a fragrance—exhaled not by the flowers alone, but by Mary herself and her belongings. She was there, beside him, in her blue dress with the elbow-sleeves. In the midst of this purity of fragrance and colour he felt ashamed of himself—so ashamed that he could have rushed out. He could not control his feeling; his breast heaved; he trembled, and was on the point of bursting into tears. Then two white arms gleamed, and he heard something said—blue and white and white and blue, the words also. The door was closed behind him—it must have been done to conceal his weakness. The two white arms gleamed again, and he heard distinctly: "Why, Jörgen! Jörgen!" He felt a hand on his arm, and sank on to a chair. She had really said "Jörgen"—said it twice. Now she stroked his forehead and smoothed the hair back from it, with a touch soft as a flower-petal. It loosed something; everything hard and painful melted under her hand and flowed away, leaving an indescribable feeling of warmth. She who now bent over him was, in truth, the first who had helped him since he was a child. He had been so lonely! There was confidence in him in the touch of her hand. How undeserved! But how it comforted him! He dreamed that he, too, was good, was under the control of beneficent powers. The white and the blue spread a canopy over him. Underneath it these large, sympathetic eyes drew his soul into theirs. He said apologetically and very low: "I could not bear it any longer." What it was he had not been able to bear, she understood, for she immediately moved away.