Gert and Jenny were walking side by side down the windy path under ragged pines. He stopped to pick some little wild strawberries, ran after her, and put them in her mouth. She thanked him with a smile, and he took her hand as they walked towards the sea that showed glittering blue between the trees.
He looked bright and young in a light summer suit, the panama hiding his hair completely. Jenny sat down near the edge of the wood, Gert lying on the grass beside her in the shade of big drooping birches.
It was scorching hot and still; the grassy slope by the water was dried yellow. Over the point hung a blue metallic bar of haze with white and smoke-yellow clouds in front. The fjord was light blue, streaked with the currents, the sailing boats lay still and white, and the smoke from the steamers hung long in the air in grey strips. There was a slight swirl of water round the pebbles, and the twigs of the birches moved gently above their heads, dropping one or two leaves dried by the heat.
One of them fell on her fair curly hair—she had taken off her hat—and Gert removed it. Looking at it, he said:
"Queer how the rain keeps off this summer. You women are much better off than we are, wearing such thin dresses. It would look as if you were in half-mourning but for those pink beads. It is very becoming, though."
The dress was a dead white, with small black blossoms, gathered all over and held at the waist by a black silk belt. The straw hat in her lap was black, trimmed with black velvet roses, and the pale pink crystal beads shone against the delicate skin of her neck.
He bent forward to kiss her foot above the rounding of the shoe, and, following with his fingers the delicate bend of her instep in the thin stocking, grasped her ankle. She loosened his hand gently and he seized hers, holding it, smiling, in a firm grip. She smiled back at him and turned away her head.
"You are so quiet, Jenny. Is it the heat?"
"Yes," she said, and then was silent again.
At a short distance from them, where the garden of a villa reached down to the sea, some children were playing on a landing-stage; a gramophone was singing sleepily inside the house. Now and again the breeze brought the sound of music from the band at the bathing establishment.
"Gert"—Jenny took hold of his hand suddenly—"when I have been a short time with mamma and come back to town again, I shall go."
"Where?" He raised himself on his elbow. "Where do you think of going?"
"To Berlin." She felt her voice tremble as she spoke.
Gert looked into her face; neither of them spoke. At last he said:
"When did you make up your mind to go?"
"You know it has been my intention all along to go abroad again."
"I know. But I mean how long have you been determined—when did you decide to go so soon?"
"At Tegneby."
"I wish you had told me before," said Gram, and his voice, low and calm as it was, cut her to the heart.
She was silent for a moment.
"I did not want to write it, Gert. I would rather tell you. When I wrote you yesterday to come and see me I meant to tell you, but I could not."
His face turned livid.
"I see. My God, how you must have suffered, child!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, mostly for your sake, Gert. I will not ask you to forgive me."
"I forgive you? Great heavens! Can you forgive me? I knew this day would come."
"I suppose we both did."
He threw himself suddenly face downwards on the ground. She bent and laid her hand on his neck.
"Oh, my dear Jenny—my little one—what have I done to you?"
"Dearest.…"
"Little white bird, have I touched you with my ugly unclean hands—spotted your white wings?"
"Gert"—she took both his hands, speaking impetuously—"listen to me. You have done nothing but what was good and kind; it is I who have done wrong. I was tired and you gave me rest; I was cold and you warmed me. I needed rest and I needed warmth; I needed to feel that somebody loved me. I did not wish to deceive you, Gert, but you did not understand—I could not make you see that I loved you in a different way—with a very poor love. Can you not understand?"
"No, Jenny, I don't believe that a young innocent girl gives herself to a man if she does not believe her love will last."
"That is just what I ask you to forgive—I knew you did not understand, and yet I accepted all you gave me. It became more and more unendurable, and I realized that I could not go on. I am fond of you, Gert, but I cannot go on only taking when I can give you nothing that is real."
"Is this what you wanted to tell me yesterday?" asked Gert after a pause.
She nodded.
"And instead.…"
Jenny turned scarlet.
"I had not the courage. You were so happy to come, and I saw that you had been longing and waiting."
He raised his head quickly: "You should not have done it. No, you should not have given me—alms."
Her face was turned away; she remembered the painful hours of yesterday in her hot, stuffy studio, hurriedly dusting and tidying to receive him, her heart aching with sorrow; but she did not care to tell him:
"I did not quite know myself—when you came. I thought for an instant—I wanted to make sure."
"Alms." He moved his head as if in pain. "It was alms all the time, then—what you gave me."
"But, Gert, don't you understand that it is just what I have accepted from you—alms—always?"
"No," he said abruptly, lying face downwards again. After a little he lifted his head:
"Jenny, is there any one else?"
"No," she replied, vexed at the thought.
"Don't think I would reproach you if there had been another—a young man—your equal; I could understand that easier."
"You don't seem able to realize—I don't think there need be another."
"Perhaps not. It seemed to me more likely, and, remembering what you wrote about Heggen being at Tegneby and going to Berlin.…"
Jenny blushed deeply:
"How can you think that I would have—yesterday?"
Gert was silent. Then he said wearily:
"I cannot quite make you out."
She was suddenly seized by a wish to hurt him.
"In a way it would not be wrong to say that there was another—a third person."
He looked at her searchingly, then clutched her arm all of a sudden:
"Jenny—good God!—what do you mean?"
But she regretted her words already, and said hurriedly:
"Yes, my work—my art."
Gert Gram had risen to his knees before her:
"Jenny—is there anything—particular—tell me the truth—don't lie to me—is there anything the matter with you?"
She tried for a second to look him straight in the eyes, then bent her head. Gert Gram fell forward with his face in her lap.
"O God!—O God!…"
"Gert, dear, compose yourself. You irritated me with your talk about another. I ought not to have told you. I did not mean to let you know until afterwards."
"I would never have forgiven you for not telling me," said Gram. "You must have known this some time. Do you know how…?"
"Three months," she answered shortly.
"Jenny"—he seized her hands in awe—"you cannot break with me now—not in this way. We cannot part now."
"Oh yes." She stroked his face caressingly. "If this had not happened I daresay we could still have been together some time, but now I must arrange my life accordingly, and make the best of it."
He was silent a moment.
"Listen to me, little one. You know I was divorced last month. In two years' time I shall be free, and then I will come to you to give you—and it—my name. I ask nothing from you, you understand—nothing—but I claim the right to give you the redress I owe you. God knows I shall suffer because it cannot be done before. Nothing else will I claim; you shall not be tied in the least to me—an old man."
"Gert, I am glad that you are separated from her, but I will tell you once and for all that I am not going to marry you when I cannot be your wife in truth. It is not because of the difference in age. If I did not feel that I have never wholly been yours, as I should have been, I would stay with you—your wife as long as you were young, your friend when old age came—even your nurse—willingly and happily. But I know I cannot be what a wife ought to be, and I cannot promise a thing I could not keep just because of what other people might say—church or civil contract, it makes no difference."
"It is madness, Jenny, to talk like that."
"You cannot make me change on that point," she replied quietly.
"What are you going to do, child? I cannot let you go now. What will happen to you?—you must let me help you."
"Hush. You see I take it calmly. I suppose once you are in for it, it is not so bad as you imagine. Fortunately I have still some money left."
"But, Jenny, think of the people who will be unkind to you—look down on you."
"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?"