“He came to see about a room,” said Ingeborg.
“Well, we have no room for him.”
“All right! Your daughter just told me—”
“Daughter? She’s no daughter of mine. You, Ingeborg, get downstairs! When there comes a man, you shall call your mother. You hear me? Get downstairs!”
The girl turned away, toward the stairs; and at sight of her mute submission a great anger rose in the young man. Not even a glance over her shoulder for him, not a smile at that old bully! She was just one of those foreign girls, with no pride.
II
He went out of the house, banging the door behind him. No pride—what was a woman without pride? If she set no value on herself, how was a man to hold her dear?
He thought of Mabel, of all the American girls he had known. There was not one among them who would have bent her head humbly to that old fellow—not one; only this Ingeborg, this little alien with the dark braids about her head.
Halfway down the street he remembered his bag. He turned and strode back, ran up the steps, and rang the bell violently. Perhaps she would come again. What did he care?
But it was Oscar who opened the door.