IV

The next morning was Sunday. Gunnar took his bath, put on his Sunday

clothes, and came down into the kitchen, smiling with a secret

happiness. It was a mild, bright day; he was going to get his car and

take Ingeborg for a drive.

All morning he was busy in the garage where his sedan had been stored

for the winter. Then he took off his overalls, scrubbed his hands, got

some lunch in a dairy, and drove to the house. He let himself in with

his latchkey, and went downstairs to the basement. In the kitchen Oscar

was sitting alone, reading the newspaper. Not caring to disturb him,

Gunnar went quietly away, looking for Ingeborg. He heard Mrs. Anders

down in the cellar, shaking up the furnace.

Going upstairs again, in the front hall he stopped to listen, and he

heard quick little footsteps overhead. He ran up the stairs to the next

floor, and there he found Ingeborg, carrying a pile of clean towels.

“I’ve brought my car,” he announced. “I’m going to take you out.”

“Oh!” said Ingeborg.

“Come on!” said Gunnar. “Get your hat and coat. There’s a heater in my

car.”

“I’ve got to ask Uncle Oscar--”

“No, you haven’t,” interrupted Gunnar. “None of his business! You’re

working all the time. You can go out on Sunday afternoon if you like.”

“I can’t go without asking.”

He was not angry now at her old-fashioned, foreign ways. Indeed, they

pleased him.

“Well, I’ll ask your uncle,” he said.

He went down into the basement, but before he got to the kitchen he

passed the open door of Ingeborg’s dark little room, and in there he saw

her hat and coat lying on the bed.

“He might say no, that old squarehead,” thought Gunnar; so he took the

hat and coat, and ran upstairs again. “It’s all right,” he assured the

girl.

If there was a row when they got home, he didn’t care. By that time he

would have told Ingeborg that they were going to be married, and Oscar

could say what he liked.

Ingeborg did not doubt his assurance. She put on her hat and coat, there

in the hall.

“I don’t look so very nice,” she said.

“You’ll do,” replied Gunnar.

He could have caught her in his arms that moment, she was so dear and so

funny in that hat and coat!

“When we get married,” he thought, “I’ll buy new clothes for

her--stylish clothes. She’s pretty--prettier than any one else.”

He was in a hurry to get her out of the house, before any one could stop

them.

“Hurry up!” he said.

She got into the car beside him, and they set off.

“Oh, how fast you go!” she said.

“Haven’t you ever been in a car before?” asked Gunnar.

“Oh, yes--Uncle Oscar brought us from the ship in a taxicab.”

“This is my own car,” said Gunnar. “In the summer I use it every day.”

He knew where he wanted to go--out of the city, and across the bridge to

Long Island. It was not a pleasant neighborhood, but the rush of wind

against her face, and Gunnar beside her, made her heart sing. He turned

down a street gloomy and empty, lined with shuttered warehouses, and at

the end of it he stopped the car.

“Here!” he said. “This is where I work.”

“Oh, what a big place!” said Ingeborg.

“I’m a foreman,” said Gunnar.

Then, even as he spoke, he saw what was going to happen. If he married

Ingeborg, he wouldn’t be a foreman much longer. Mabel would see to that.

He would lose his job. He would have to give up his car, give up the

fine room, the good money. He could find another job in another factory,

but not as foreman. That wasn’t so easy. He would have to go to work

under another man.

For a time he sat staring before him, his blue eyes grown hard. He had

not thought of this before. To give up so much, and of his own free

will! He was terribly downcast.

Then Ingeborg stirred beside him, and he turned to her with a queer

look. His eyes were narrowed; he stared and stared at her. She glanced

at him, and then, with an uncertain little smile, bent her head. There

she sat, with her small hands folded--patient, a little confused; and

she was so dear to him--dearer than anything else in the world! He was

glad to give up all these things for her. He would give his life for

her, his beloved maiden, his little angel!

He looked up and down the empty street. There was no one in sight. He

caught her in his arms, held her tight, and kissed her pale cheek.

“Don’t!” she cried.

He paid no attention to that. He laughed, because he was so proud and so

happy; and, putting his hand under her chin, he turned her head and

kissed her mouth.

“You’re my girl!” he said.

“Gunnar Jespersen!” she said. “How dare you treat me like this?”

Her eyes were looking into his, and he was astounded by the stern anger

in them. She was not gentle now, not patient. Such a hot color there was

in her cheeks, such a light in her eyes!

“Dare?” said Gunnar. “Do you think I’m afraid of you?”

But he let her go; for he was afraid, and ashamed, and terribly hurt.

“Gunnar Jespersen!” she said. “Take me home!”

“You came out with me quick enough,” argued Gunnar.

“Take me home!” repeated Ingeborg.

“You can’t talk to me like that,” said Gunnar. “I’ll go when I’m ready.”

But, just the same, he had to obey her. He turned the car and started

back. He was sick to the soul with shame and disappointment. He had

offered her everything, and she returned him only scorn and anger. Never

before in his life had any woman been able to hurt him so. Whether it

was anger or pure sorrow that he felt, he did not know; but it seemed to

him that he could not endure it.

He wanted to say something that would hurt her; but when he looked at

her, he could not. She had grown pale again, and sat very straight,

looking before her, so stern and cold, and still dear to him. He could

not endure it.

He stopped the car before a drug store.

“Going to telephone,” he said.

When he came out again, he felt that he had paid her back.

“You’re not the only one. If you don’t want me, all right! There’s

somebody else that wants me--somebody who’s rich, with a fine house, and

pearls. What do I care for _you_?”

In his heart he said this to Ingeborg, but not aloud. He dared not. For

all his great anger against her, there was something in her, some

strange dignity and power, that checked him.

He took her to the corner of his street.

“All right!” he said. “Now I’m going somewhere else.”

He did not want to look at her again, but, as she walked off, he had to

look. There she went, so slender and little, so unattainable!

“What have I done, anyhow?” he asked himself, with a sort of amazement.

He did not know, and yet a terrible sense of guilt oppressed him; and

because he would not be humbled, not by any human creature, not by his

own soul, he would go to Mabel. He was reckless now.

Unfortunately, Mabel would not be expecting him for several hours. He

drove about at random. At first he made up his mind that he would never

go back to the house where Ingeborg was. Never mind about the clothes he

had there! Let them go--what did he care?

As the dusk came, and his bitterness still grew, he changed his mind and

turned back there. He was going to tell Ingeborg, going to tell all of

them. He wanted to do some reckless, arrogant thing, to show them what a

fellow he was.

The most extraordinary ideas came into his head. He thought that perhaps

he would go down into the basement and tell Oscar that he wanted to buy

that piano. He must do something to show them, and something to give

rest to his inexplicable pain.

He strode up the steps, unlocked the door, and opened it with a violence

that sent it crashing back against the wall. What did he care if he

broke it? He could pay for it.

As he entered, a shadowy little form came up the stairs.

“_Ach, Gott_, what have you done?” whispered Mrs. Anders.

He closed the door and stood leaning against it.

“What d’you mean?” he asked.

She spoke to him rapidly in Danish, but he had long ago forgotten the

language of his fathers.

“Speak English!” he said. “I don’t understand that stuff.”

“_Ach_, what a spectacle!” said Mrs. Anders. “Her Uncle Oscar, he finds

she is vent out, and she will not say who vas it. _Ach_, so mad is he!”

She wiped her eyes on her apron. “It is a badness dat you do so, Gunnar

Jespersen!”

He wanted to laugh, but he could not. Something of the same fear he had

felt for Ingeborg he felt now for Mrs. Anders--the mystic reverence for

a good woman that was in his soul.

“Well, I’ll tell the old squarehead,” he said. “What’s the harm if she

does go out with a fellow?”

“Hush!” said Mrs. Anders sternly. “It is a badness when you speak so of

the Uncle Oscar. He is a goot man. He gifs us a home.”

Gunnar had to understand that, for in his own heart there was an echo of

that simple fidelity. Let him try to laugh if he would, the old

austerities were deathless in him. He stood before a good woman, and he

was abashed.

He thought no more of going boastfully and arrogantly to Oscar Anders.

Anders was the master of this house, as Gunnar’s father had been master

of his. He was not to be affronted.

“Where’s Ingeborg?” asked Gunnar, speaking very low.

“You shall not tr-rouble my Ingeborg!” said Mrs. Anders.

“I can speak to her, can’t I?” he inquired sullenly.

Mrs. Anders looked at him in silence for a time.

“She sits up on the stairs,” she said. “Her Uncle Oscar is too mad, so

he yells that she cannot come downstairs for it.”

Gunnar set his foot on the lowest stair. He did not want to go to

Ingeborg. What had he to say to her? But he had to go. He went

unwillingly, slowly.

“Well, what have I done, anyhow?” he asked himself.

V

Up at the top of the house he found Ingeborg sitting on the stairs, in

the twilight. She was leaning her head against the wall, and her hands

were folded in her lap. He stood looking down at her for a long while,

but she paid no heed to him.

“Well!” he said, with a rough affectation of carelessness. “What you

doing here?”

“Nothing,” she answered coldly.

Pain came over him like a wave, because of that coldness.

“Ingeborg,” he said, “what makes you so mad at me?”

“Go away, please! I don’t want to talk to you.”

He could see her only dimly, and he dared not go a step nearer to her,

or even stretch out his hand.

“Ingeborg,” he said, “if I told you I was sorry--”

Such an effort it was to say that!

“It wouldn’t make any difference,” said she.

“What?” cried Gunnar. “If I’m sorry?”

“No!” said Ingeborg.

It was like a blow to him. He could not speak for a time. He had humbled

himself again, and still she was cold and stern--and still so dear to

him!

“She’s right!” he cried, in his heart. “If she knew--”

Suppose she did know? He was ready to believe that her clear and

innocent glance had a terrible penetration. He could not understand her.

Perhaps, in some way of her own, she did know all the wrong things he

had done.

“Ingeborg!” he cried. “I--I’m sorry I did that! I--”

Despair and pain choked him. In his blind need for her kindness, he came

close to her, sat down on the step below her, and buried his head in his

hands.

“If you would marry me, Ingeborg,” he said, “then I’d be different!”

“Marry you?” she said. “Do you think I am like that? Do you think I

would marry the first man who comes along? Why, I don’t even know you,

Gunnar Jespersen!”

“Ingeborg!” he said.

And that was all he could say. He could not tell her what he meant--that

for her sake he would give up all his pride, that for her sake he was

sick and ashamed. All he could do was to speak her name.

She made no answer. He waited and waited for even one word, but in vain.

“Are you--mad at me, Ingeborg?” he asked unsteadily.

“No,” replied Ingeborg quietly.

He sat up abruptly.

“I think I’ll--lose my job,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have to go away.” He

thought that somehow she would understand all that he meant by that, all

that he renounced. “If I have to go away somewhere, to get a job,” he

went on, “promise not to marry some other fellow!”

“I don’t want to marry any one, Gunnar Jespersen.”

“Just promise to wait!”

“No!” she said; but her voice was not cold now.

“Ingeborg!” he cried. “Do you like me?”

“I don’t know you, Gunnar Jespersen,” said Ingeborg with dignity.

He rose, chilled and hopeless.

“Well,” he said, “I’m going.”

Her clear little voice came to him through the dark:

“Maybe I will like you when I know you, Gunnar Jespersen!”

He spun around. She had risen, and was standing close to him. He put out

his hand, but she drew back, and his arm fell to his side. He must not

touch her. He must wait. She had given him hope, and that was all.

And it was enough. He had found at last the beloved maiden who must be

won. It would be hard, but it was good; it was what he wanted. It was a

challenge worthy of him.

“All right!” he said. “You’ll see!”

He ran down the stairs again, and his heart was light now. He was so

proud of the little Ingeborg who made him wait!

MUNSEY’S

MAGAZINE

AUGUST, 1927

Vol. XCI NUMBER 3