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Kastager suggested that the children go with her to Nice, while they sent for Thorbrogger to come to Avignon, so that they might be married. Kastager could stay on as witness. Mrs. Fonss wavered a little while longer, for she had been unable to discover what her children's reaction would be.
Tage had never in his life heard mention of Thorbrogger, but that was not his thoughts; he thought only of the fact that this gaucho turned out to be a Dane; when a pause set in, and some one had to say something he could not help exclaiming, "and I who said yesterday that you reminded me of a gaucho!"
A little later she went upstairs to Elinor. Elinor slept. Mrs. Fonss sat down by her bed and looked at her pale child whose features she could only dimly distinguish under the faint yellow glow of the night lamp. For Elinor's sake they would have to wait. In a few days they would separate from Thorbrogger, go to Nice, and stay there by themselves.
Spain became their home; Thorbrogger chose it for the sake of sheep-farming. Neither of them wished to return to Denmark. And they lived happily in Spain. She wrote several times to her children, but in their first violent anger that she had left them, they returned the letters.
They must know that what she was about to tell them was definitely decided, and that nothing they might say could make her alter her decision. "I am going to marry again," she said, and told them of how she had loved Thorbrogger, before she had known their father; how she had become separated from him, and how they had now met again.
For she did not believe that her children would ever change their mind, and yet she had to discuss it with them over and over again before she gave up hope. The best thing would be for Thorbrogger to leave immediately. With his presence no longer here the children might be less irritable, and she could try to show them how eager she was to be as considerate as possible to them.
Then suddenly as if she heard the silence in the room and the long-drawn singing of the gas-flames, she let her hand drop from the vase and sat down by the table and began to turn over the leaves of a portfolio. She heard steps, passing by the door, heard them turn back, and saw Thorbrogger enter.
"Well," replied Thorbrogger, "that wasn't far from the truth; for twenty-one years I have lived in the plains of La Plata, and in those years certainly spent more time on horse-back than on foot." And now he had come back to Europe!
Fonss, "is it possible that you and I are old acquaintances?" "Are you Emil Thorbrogger?" exclaimed Mrs. Fonss, and held out her hand. He seized it. "Yes, I am he," he said gayly, "and you are she?" His eyes almost filled with tears as he looked at her. Mrs Fonss introduced Tage as her son.
In time the first bitterness would disappear, and everything... no, she did not believe, that everything would turn out well. They agreed that Thorbrogger should leave for Denmark to arrange their affairs. For the time being they would remain here. It seemed, however, that nothing was gained by this. The children avoided her.
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