Jenny sat on the arm of the chair. Cesca nestled close to her: “I suppose you are right—I have no instincts. Perhaps I never loved him really, but I should have liked to have a child by him. And yet I could not make up my mind. Sometimes he wanted me to marry him straight off, go to the registry office, but I wouldn’t. They would have been so angry with me at home, and people would have said we were obliged to marry, if we had done it that way. I did not want that either, although I knew they thought the worst of me all the same, but that did not worry me. I knew I was ruining my reputation for his sake, but I did not care, and I don’t care now, I tell you. “But he thought I refused because I was afraid he would not marry me afterwards. ‘Let’s go to the registry office first, then, you silly girl,’ he said, but I would not go. He thought it was all sham. ‘You cold!’ he said; ‘you are not cold any longer than you choose to be.’ Sometimes I almost thought I wasn’t. Perhaps it was only fright, for he was such a brute; he beat me sometimes—nearly tore the clothes off me. I had to scratch and bite to protect myself—and cry and scream.” “And yet you went back to him?” said Jenny. “I did, that is true. The porter’s wife did not want to do his rooms any longer, so I went and tidied up for him. I had a key. I scrubbed the floor and made his bed—Heaven only knows who had been in it.” Jenny shook her head. “Borghild was furious about it. She proved to me that he had a mistress. I knew it, but I did not want proof. Borghild said he had given me the key, because he wanted me to take them by surprise, and make me jealous, so that I should give in, as I was compromised anyway. But she was not right, for it was _me_ he loved—in his way—I know he loved me as much as he could love anybody.