"We can marry, you mean?"
"Yes!" and off she started.
"No, dear. The shares are yielding almost nothing just now."
"What does that matter? We'll risk it, Jörgen!" she cried, radiant with health and courage.
"Without Uncle's consent?" asked Jörgen in a despondent tone.
Mary stood still again. "He would disinherit you?"
Instead of answering directly, Jörgen began mournfully: "I wish you knew, Mary, what I have had to bear from Uncle, from the day he adopted me—the things he has demanded of me, the things he has persecuted me for. To this very day he treats me like a naughty schoolboy. The worst of his bad temper is vented upon me."
The mixture of unhappiness and bitterness depicted on his face led Mary involuntarily to exclaim: "Poor Jörgen—now I begin to understand!"
They walked on. She reflected that Jörgen's power of self-control had been acquired in a hard school; there he had also learned the art of concealment. She could not but admire his tenacity of purpose. What had it not accomplished! Think of his music alone! It, however, had been a great consolation to him. Now she understood his extreme politeness; now she understood his sentimentality; she understood what had made him so exacting and severe with those under his command.
She saw that she herself had probably added to his unhappiness. His long, silent love for her had only been an additional burden; for she had not given him one encouraging word—very much the reverse! What wonder that at last it should have become a kind of possession!