from that of other people, she meant to follow them, even if it would be painful to her mother to hear disagreeable things said about her.
If her relations with Gert were a sin, it did not mean that she had given too much, but too little, and whatever the consequences would be, she had to bear them without complaint.
She could provide for a child just as well as many a girl who had not a tenth part of her knowledge. There was still some money left of her inheritance—enough for her to go abroad. If the profession she had chosen was a poor one, she knew that several of her fellow-artists were able to keep wife and children with it, and she had been used to helping others from the time she was almost a child. She would, of course, prefer not to have to do it; so far everything had been all right—she would not think of it.
Gert would be in despair.
If it was true, how dreadful that it should happen now. If it had happened when she loved him, or thought she did, and she could have gone away in good faith, but now, when everything that had been between them had crumbled to pieces, torn asunder by her own thinking and pondering.…
During these weeks at Tegneby she had made up her mind not to go on any longer. She was longing to go away to new conditions, new work. Yes, the longing for work had come back; she had had enough of this sickly desire of clinging to somebody, to be cuddled and petted and called little girl.
At the thought of breaking with him her heart winced with pain. She shrank from causing him sorrow, but she had kept it up as long as possible. Gert had been happy while it lasted, and he was free from the degrading slavery with his wife.
She was perfectly resigned to the thought that her life henceforth would be work and solitude only. She knew she could not obiterate the past months from her life; she would always remember them and the bitter lessons they had taught her.
