Part 87

“A nice thing for me!” said the young man. “A night like this--and I gave up my old room. A fellow I know told me to come here--name of Nielsen.”

“Nielsen?” repeated Oscar, staring thoughtfully at him. “Well, maybe I find something. One room I have, but that’s not for a young fellow like you--a fine room, with a piano in it. Maybe I let you have that room for one night at the price of the other, because that dumb one--”

“Oh, I’ll pay you for your fine room with a piano!” interrupted the young man. “You can charge what you like--I don’t care!”

Oscar Anders accepted the challenge.

“Pay nothing at all--I don’t care!” he said.

He threw open the door of the fine room, the front parlor, and lit the gas.

“Make yourself at home,” he said carelessly; for he would not let the fellow see how much he thought of this parlor.

The young man brought out a wallet, and again he and Oscar looked at each other; and there was the same pride in both of them.

“What’s your name, hey?” asked Oscar.

“My name? Jespersen’s my name.”

Oscar began to laugh.

“Jespersen you call it?” he said. “Yespersen, I guess! That’s a name from the old country.”

“Well, I’m not from the old country. I was born here.”

Oscar spoke to him in Danish.

“Forget it!” said Jespersen curtly.

“That’s right!” agreed Oscar. “I’m an American, too.”

“Oh, you’re a squarehead!” said Jespersen.

They both laughed at that. They sat down on two slender chairs covered with faded tapestry, and began to smoke in the dim and chilly parlor.

“Gunnar Jespersen--that’s my name,” said the young man. “My father was a Dane and my mother was Swedish, but I was born here.”

“Twenty-five years I am here,” said Oscar slowly. “It is a good country, but some of the old ways are good, too.” He smoked for awhile in silence. “You been a sailor,” he remarked, looking at the other’s hand, with an anchor tattooed on its back.

Gunnar did not answer that.

“Better for me if I were a sailor now!” he thought.

For there would come across him, without warning in these days, terrible fits of bitterness and gloom. At the bottom of his soul there was a stern austerity, born in him and bred in him. He could laugh as much as he liked, he could swagger in his triumph, but in his soul he was sick and ashamed.

What was it that he had done?

Six months ago he had been at Long Beach, strolling along the sands, in his best shore clothes. He had been all alone, but he didn’t mind that. There was plenty to look at. Now and then some girl would smile at him, and he would smile back scornfully and go on his way.

And then he had met Mabel. At first he could not believe that it was he that she was looking at like that, out of the corners of her long black eyes. Heaven knows Gunnar was proud enough, but he could hardly believe that. The way she was dressed! The air she had!

She was with another girl, and it was the other girl who had dropped her purse almost at Gunnar’s feet. He had picked it up, and had spoken to them arrogantly; but the more curt and scornful he was, the more did Mabel smile on him, she with her pearls and her gloves and her drawling voice. Ignoring her friend, she had walked close beside Gunnar.

“It’s a shame,” she had said, “for you to be just a sailor!”

That made him angry. He was studying navigation, he was going to take an examination and get his mate’s ticket, and some day he would be master of a ship.

“My father’s the superintendent of a factory,” she said. “I know he’ll give you a job.”

“I don’t want any more jobs,” declared Gunnar.

But, all the same, he went to her father the next day, and he did get a job, and after two months he was made foreman. Now he had a little car of his own, and two suits of clothes, and a fine watch. He was making good money, and he wanted more. He had never thought much about money until he met Mabel.

Sometimes she came to the factory to drive her father home, and always she stopped to talk to Gunnar. She didn’t care how much the men stared.

“Gunnar,” she said one day, “I want you to come to the house to dinner.”

“Not me!” said Gunnar.

But he went, and he could not forget it. In the factory, grimy, in his rough work clothes, he would remember how he had sat at table in their fine house that night, with the girl opposite him, in a glittering low-cut dress, and her mother and father making much of him. They wanted him for their girl--he knew that. They would help him along in the world, for her sake, and to his ruin--he knew that, too.

For she waked everything that was worst in him. Sometimes in his heart he called her a devil, yet he could not escape from her. Waking and sleeping, his one dream was to conquer her, to make more money, to have a house such as she lived in, to have a place in her world, and to be his own master in it.

III

“Well, Gunnar Jespersen,” said Oscar, getting up, “your breakfast you can have downstairs at seven o’clock.”

“Good night!” returned Gunnar briefly.

But he did not have a good night in that fine room with a piano in it.

He got up early the next morning--too early. With the shades pulled down and the gas lighted, the parlor had a jaded look, as if it were tired and sullen, like himself. He dressed and went out into the hall, and downstairs to the basement.

At the kitchen door he stopped and looked in, and there he saw Ingeborg cooking the breakfast. She was as neat as a pin in her dark dress and white apron, and with her smooth coronet of braids. She was pale, and her eyes were red from weeping. A sad, quiet little thing she was, but so dear to him, all in a moment! How good she was, he thought, like a dear little angel! If only he could turn to her as his refuge!

He saw everything so clearly now. Here was his good angel, to save his soul from ruin. He had terrible need of her, of her goodness and gentleness and patience.

He went into the room. She turned at his footstep, and he came close to her and stood before her, looking down into her face. Her eyes, shining with clear truth, were lifted to his, but she did not smile. It was as if she knew how desperate was his case.

“Ingeborg!” he said, very low. “Dear little thing!”

She turned away her head, and a faint color rose in her cheeks.

“Such nice herrings for your breakfast!” she said.

It was part of her blessedness that she could think of things like that--safe and homely things. She was the innocent little handmaiden, destined to make a home for his stormy spirit. He caught both her hands.

“Look at me!” he commanded.

But she shook her head, confused and smiling.

“Ingeborg!” he began, but just then there came a stamping and a great voice calling out:

“Hey! You Ingeborg! I’m ready!”

She ran to the stove and looked into the coffeepot. Then she began to put the breakfast on the table, and Oscar and Gunnar sat down together.

“I’ll keep the room,” said Gunnar.

“That room’s for a married couple,” objected Oscar, “not for a young fellow like you.”

“I can pay for it,” said Gunnar.

“I guess you want to play on that piano!” cried Oscar, with a shout of laughter, and Gunnar laughed, too, because he was happy.

The sun was up when he left for his work. It was a sharp March morning, with a wind that blew the sky clear and clean.

“The spring is coming,” thought Gunnar. “On Sunday, if it’s a nice day, maybe I’ll get out my car and take Ingeborg for a ride.”

He thought about that with a masterful joy. She was a little angel, but she was human enough to falter beneath his bold gaze. He was a conqueror again.

It was late in the afternoon when Mabel came in. She came like a queen, for wasn’t she the daughter of the superintendent? She beckoned to Gunnar with her gloved hand, and he left his work and came to her; but not like a subject to a queen. He stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck, his fair hair damp with sweat, his hands blackened, but he was as cool and easy as she.

They stood apart in the great room that trembled and throbbed with the beat of machinery, and the men looked at them sidelong; but she was not abashed. She could do as she pleased.

“Gunnar,” she said, “I’ll wait for you by the bridge and drive you part of the way home.”

“You’ll have a nice long wait, then,” said Gunnar. “I won’t be finished here for another hour.”

“Perhaps they can manage to get on without you, if you leave a little early,” she suggested with a slow smile.

“Maybe they could,” said Gunnar; “but I’m not coming.”

It was just this insolence that she liked in Gunnar. It was a challenge to her.

“I want to talk to you, Gunnar,” she told him.

“There’s a rush order to get out,” replied Gunnar, “and I can’t leave early.”

At any cost she had to humble him--at any cost!

“Gunnar,” she said, “after all, if it wasn’t for me--”

“Some day I’ll pay you what I owe you,” he interrupted.

They looked steadily at each other.

“You’re a fool!” she said. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here at all.”

Gunnar laughed.

“Do you think I’d starve if I wasn’t here?” he said.

She wished it were like that. She wished she had the power of life and death over him. She _would_ conquer him!

She was silent for a moment, thinking how she could do it. He watched her; and, for all his scorn, his heart beat fast at the sight of her vivid beauty. She was a tall girl, thin, with a dark, narrow face, rouged and powdered, her cruel mouth reddened. She was dressed in a fur coat and high-heeled shoes, with her pearls about her neck. She was for him the very symbol of the new world of money that he so fiercely desired.

“Gunnar!” she said.

“Well?” returned Gunnar.

She was not looking at him now.

“Sunday evening I’m going to be all alone.”

A sort of fear seized them both, for they saw a crisis coming near. Either she must win or he must win.

“What about it?” asked Gunnar.

“You can telephone me on Sunday afternoon,” she said, “if you want to come.”

“Well, I don’t,” declared Gunnar.

She smiled, but it was a queer smile, and she said nothing. Perhaps she herself did not know what she meant.

Gunnar spun around on his heel and went back to his work.

“Let her wait!” he thought, and laughed aloud. “Here, you, Kelly! Get on the job there!”

He slept well that night, and the next morning, when he came down into the kitchen, he was swaggering a little. Mrs. Anders was there, and he had no chance to talk to Ingeborg; but he looked straight into the girl’s face, and she smiled at him.

“I’ll marry her!” he thought. “Yes, that’s what I’ll do!”

“What you laughing about?” asked Mrs. Anders.

“Oh, nothing!” said Gunnar.

As a matter of fact, he was laughing at the idea of his getting married. Gunnar Jespersen a married man! It was funny, but it made him very happy.

“Such a fine young man!” thought Mrs. Anders. “The best room in the house he takes. He must be rich; and so handsome and strong, and his people from the old country! If there should be a man like that for the little Ingeborg--”

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--”