She looked at him in awe. Yes, he was right—she had not wished to admit it, but it was so.
“If I asked you now—this moment—would you consent?”
Jenny moved her lips; then came a quick and firm “Yes.”
Helge smiled sadly, kissing her hand: “Gladly, because you wish to be mine? Because you cannot conceive of any happiness unless you are mine and I am yours? Not only because you want to be kind to me or don’t want to break your word—tell me the truth.”
She threw herself down on his knee and sobbed: “Let me go away for a time. I want to go up in the mountains. I must recover myself. I want to be your Jenny, as I was in Rome. I do want it, Helge, but I am so confused now. When I am myself again I will write you to come, and I will be your own Jenny again—yours only.”
“I am my mother’s son,” said Helge quietly. “We have got estranged from one another. Will you not convince me that I am everything in the world to you, the only man, more than anything else?—more than your work and your friends, to whom I felt you belonged more than to me—just as you feel a stranger among the people I belong to.”
“I did not feel a stranger towards your father.”
“No, but my father and I are strangers to one another. There is one interest—your work—which I cannot share with you completely, and I know now that I should be jealous of it. You see, I am her son. If I am not convinced that I am everything in the world to you, I cannot help being jealous—anxiously fearing that some day there might come another whom you could love more, who could understand you better. I am jealous by nature.”
“You must not be jealous, or everything will go to pieces. I cannot bear to be distrusted. I would rather you deceived me than doubted me—I could better forgive you that.”
“I could not”—with a bitter smile.