“You wish, then, that we shall be as strangers from now on, Gösta?”
“That is what I wish.”
“You are very changeable, Gösta Berling.”
“People often charge me with it.”
He was cold, impossible to warm, and she was still colder. Self-consciousness sat and sneered at her attempt to act love.
“Gösta,” she said, making a last effort, “I have never intentionally wronged you, even if it may seem so. I beg of you, forgive me!”
“I cannot forgive you.”
She knew that if she had possessed a real feeling she could have won him back. And she tried to play the impassioned. The icy eyes sneered at her, but she tried nevertheless. She did not want to lose him.
“Do not go, Gösta! Do not go in anger! Think how ugly I have become! No one will ever love me again.”
“Nor I, either,” he said. “You must accustom yourself to see your heart trampled upon as well as another.”