“Not always,” said Gunnar.
“I suppose there is nobody who means the same thing always.”
“Yes, always when one is sober. You were right last night in saying that sometimes one isn’t sober even if one hasn’t been drinking.”
“At present—when I am sober once in a while, I——” She broke off and remained silent.
“You know what I think about life, and I know you have always thought the same. What happens to you is, on the whole, the result of your own will. As a rule, you are the maker of your own fate. Now and then there are circumstances which you cannot master, but it is a colossal exaggeration to say it happens often.”
“God knows I did not will my fate, Gunnar. Yet I have willed for many years and lived accordingly, too.”
Both were quiet a moment.
“One day,” she said slowly, “I changed my course an instant. I found it so severe and hard to live the life I considered the most worthy—so lonely, you see. I left the road for a bit, wanting to be young and to play, and thus came into a current that carried me away, ending in something I never for a second had thought could possibly happen to me.”
After a moment’s silence Heggen said:
“Rossetti says—and you know he is a much better poet than painter: