The most extraordinary ideas came into his head. He thought that perhaps he would go down into the basement and tell[Pg 513] Oscar that he wanted to buy that piano. He must do something to show them, and something to give rest to his inexplicable pain.
He strode up the steps, unlocked the door, and opened it with a violence that sent it crashing back against the wall. What did he care if he broke it? He could pay for it.
As he entered, a shadowy little form came up the stairs.
“Ach, Gott, what have you done?” whispered Mrs. Anders.
He closed the door and stood leaning against it.
“What d’you mean?” he asked.
She spoke to him rapidly in Danish, but he had long ago forgotten the language of his fathers.
“Speak English!” he said. “I don’t understand that stuff.”
“Ach, what a spectacle!” said Mrs. Anders. “Her Uncle Oscar, he finds she is vent out, and she will not say who vas it. Ach, so mad is he!” She wiped her eyes on her apron. “It is a badness dat you do so, Gunnar Jespersen!”
He wanted to laugh, but he could not. Something of the same fear he had felt for Ingeborg he felt now for Mrs. Anders—the mystic reverence for a good woman that was in his soul.