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:
