“It is dangerous, Jenny,” he said, and again after a pause: “I think it was disgusting tonight—I cannot call it anything else. I have seen something of life; I know what it leads to. I would not like to see you come down and end as something like Loulou.”
“You can be quite easy in your mind about me, Gunnar. I am not going to end that way. I don’t really like it, and I know where to stop.”
He sat looking at her.
“I know what you mean,” he said at last. “Other women have thought as you, but when one has been gliding downward for a time one ceases to care about where to stop, as you call it.” Stepping down from the wall, he went towards her and took her hand:
“Jenny, you will stop now, will you not?”
She rose, smiling:
“For the present, anyway. I think I am cured for a long time of that sort of thing.” She shook his hand firmly: “Good-night; I’ll sit for you in the morning,” she said, going down the stairs.
“All right, thanks.”
He remained on the roof for some time smoking, shivering a little, and thinking, before going down to his room.