“Not if we got married....”
She suddenly looked straight at him, defiantly, nervously. Her voice was hard, almost shrill.
“I am ... an invalid....”
“And I am ruined....”
A moment before Stellan had never meant to say anything of the kind; he only had a clear feeling that he must be absolutely unsentimental. But he did not regret it. A brutal sincerity may sometimes be the most refined of lies.
The barge had at last passed through and sailed on. Stellan continued in a different and more passionate tone:
“I don’t seek any repetition of my life’s former adventures. What is most exquisite in you, Elvira, is that you are ... free. Heaven protect me from those women who only breathe the nursery. No, there is a different and more robust air about you, an air in which one can breathe. I have never dreamt of such courage in a woman as you showed up in the rigging of the balloon. I sincerely believe that we together might do something bold and great with our lives.”
“To begin with, we should make father furious,” she said in a voice that did not sound at all distressed at the prospect. Then she suddenly turned her horse and started off homewards at a sharp gallop.
Stellan followed silent and pale, with lips pressed tight together, without knowing what to think. It was exactly the same feeling as he had in the presence of the roulette ball. Through his head a ridiculous thought flashed. “Be bold and take your courage in both hands. I never talked about courage till I began to doubt it. And now just because I am afraid I shall fling down my courage as if it were the ace of trumps in the highest suit. It will be a continuation of yesterday’s little cheating game.”
And he felt how chill self-contempt was beginning to grow up out of the events of the night....