her than they are already. I don't care for my mother any longer—she knows it, and is so grieved at it. It is only a formality, I know, but she would suffer if she thought I wanted to keep her out in the cold. She would think it was vengeance for the old story, you know. When we are through with all that, we will get married, and nobody will have anything more to say. I wish so much that it would be soon—don't you?"
She kissed him in answer.
"I want you," he whispered, and she made no resistance when he caressed her. But he let her go suddenly and, buttering his biscuit, began to eat.
Afterwards they sat by the stove smoking, she in the easy-chair and he on the floor with his head in her lap.
"Isn't Cesca coming back tonight either?" he asked suddenly.
"No; she is staying in Tivoli till the end of the week," Jenny answered a little nervously.
"You have such pretty, slender feet."
"You are so lovely—oh, so lovely—and I am so fond of you. You don't know how I love you, Jenny—I should like to lie down on the floor at your feet."
"Helge! Helge!" His sudden violence frightened her, but then she said to herself: he is my own darling boy. Why should I be afraid of him.
"No, Helge—don't. Not the shoes I stamp about with in those dirty streets."
Helge rose—sobered and humble. She tried to laugh the whole matter away. "There may be many dangerous bacilli on those shoes, you know."
"Ugh! What a pedant you are. And you pretend to be an artist." He laughed too, and to hide his embarrassment, he went on boisterously: "A nice sweetheart you are. Let me smell: I thought so—you smell of turpentine and paint."
