“Nobody can do that. There is only one thing I am ashamed of, and it is that I allowed you to waste your love on me.”
“Such foolish talk! You don’t know how heartless people can be; they will treat you unkindly, insult and hurt you.”
“I don’t mind that very much, Gert.” She smiled vaguely. “Fortunately I am an artist; people expect a little scandal now and then from us.”
He shook his head. In a sudden desperate regret at having told him and given him so much pain she took him in her arms:
“My dear friend, you must not be so distressed—you see that I am not. On the contrary, I am sometimes quite happy about it. When I think that I am going to have a child—a sweet little child, my very own—I can scarcely believe it. I think it will be so great a happiness that I can hardly grasp it now. A little living being, to belong to me only, to love, to live and work for. I sometimes think that then only will my life and my work be of some purpose. Don’t you think I could make a name for myself good enough for the child too? It is only because I don’t know yet how to arrange it all that I am a little depressed sometimes, and also because you are so sad.
“Perhaps I am poor and dull and an egoist, but I am a woman, and as such I cannot but be happy at the prospect of being a mother.”
He kissed her hands:
“My poor, brave girl! It makes it almost worse for me to see you take it that way.”
Jenny smiled faintly:
“Would it not be worse still if I took it in another way?”