“I can pay for it,” said Gunnar.
“I guess you want to play on that piano!” cried Oscar, with a shout of laughter, and Gunnar laughed, too, because he was happy.
The sun was up when he left for his work. It was a sharp March morning, with a wind that blew the sky clear and clean.
“The spring is coming,” thought Gunnar. “On Sunday, if it’s a nice day, maybe I’ll get out my car and take Ingeborg for a ride.”
He thought about that with a masterful joy. She was a little angel, but she was human enough to falter beneath his bold gaze. He was a conqueror again.
It was late in the afternoon when Mabel came in. She came like a queen, for wasn’t she the daughter of the superintendent? She beckoned to Gunnar with her gloved hand, and he left his work and came to her; but not like a subject to a queen. He stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck, his fair hair damp with sweat, his hands blackened, but he was as cool and easy as she.
They stood apart in the great room that trembled and throbbed with the beat of machinery, and the men looked at them sidelong; but she was not abashed. She could do as she pleased.
“Gunnar,” she said, “I’ll wait for you by the bridge and drive you part of the way home.”
“You’ll have a nice long wait, then,” said Gunnar. “I won’t be finished here for another hour.”
“Perhaps they can manage to get on without you, if you leave a little early,” she suggested with a slow smile.