“Oh, you’re a squarehead!” said Jespersen.
They both laughed at that. They sat down on two slender chairs covered with faded tapestry, and began to smoke in the dim and chilly parlor.
“Gunnar Jespersen—that’s my name,” said the young man. “My father was a Dane and my mother was Swedish, but I was born here.”
“Twenty-five years I am here,” said Oscar slowly. “It is a good country, but some of the old ways are good, too.” He smoked for awhile in silence. “You been a sailor,” he remarked, looking at the other’s hand, with an anchor tattooed on its back.
Gunnar did not answer that.
“Better for me if I were a sailor now!” he thought.[Pg 509]
For there would come across him, without warning in these days, terrible fits of bitterness and gloom. At the bottom of his soul there was a stern austerity, born in him and bred in him. He could laugh as much as he liked, he could swagger in his triumph, but in his soul he was sick and ashamed.
What was it that he had done?
Six months ago he had been at Long Beach, strolling along the sands, in his best shore clothes. He had been all alone, but he didn’t mind that. There was plenty to look at. Now and then some girl would smile at him, and he would smile back scornfully and go on his way.
And then he had met Mabel. At first he could not believe that it was he that she was looking at like that, out of the corners of her long black eyes. Heaven knows Gunnar was proud enough, but he could hardly believe that. The way she was dressed! The air she had!