“I will ask anybody else,” she said, with some difficulty—“but not him.”
Loerke looked closely at her.
“Good,” he said. “Then let it be somebody else. Only don’t go back to that England, that school. No, that is stupid.”
Again there was a pause. He was afraid to ask her outright to go with him, he was not even quite sure he wanted her; and she was afraid to be asked. He begrudged his own isolation, was very chary of sharing his life, even for a day.
“The only other place I know is Paris,” she said, “and I can’t stand that.”
She looked with her wide, steady eyes full at Loerke. He lowered his head and averted his face.
“Paris, no!” he said. “Between the réligion d’amour, and the latest ’ism, and the new turning to Jesus, one had better ride on a carrousel all day. But come to Dresden. I have a studio there—I can give you work,—oh, that would be easy enough. I haven’t seen any of your things, but I believe in you. Come to Dresden—that is a fine town to be in, and as good a life as you can expect of a town. You have everything there, without the foolishness of Paris or the beer of Munich.”
He sat and looked at her, coldly. What she liked about him was that he spoke to her simple and flat, as to himself. He was a fellow craftsman, a fellow being to her, first.
“No—Paris,” he resumed, “it makes me sick. Pah—l’amour. I detest it. L’amour, l’amore, die Liebe—I detest it in every language. Women and love, there is no greater tedium,” he cried.
She was slightly offended. And yet, this was her own basic feeling. Men, and love—there was no greater tedium.