How did she behave for her part now when he slowly began to slip out of the shadow of death under which they had come so near to each other? Did she draw back into her shell? Did she become the closed garden or the sealed spring once again? It might seem so. She had an expression which seemed to command him to forget what had passed between them. That furtive tenderness, whose shoots seemed only to thrive in darkness, ceased. But the seal was all the same broken. Her reserve and shyness could never be exactly the same again, they had no longer the true depth. There rather arose moments of a certain banal and everyday embarrassment between them. Percy clearly suffered in accepting her assistance. He shaved himself every day and became particular about his appearance. Certain situations galled him as being lowering to his masculine pride. It seemed as if he had to overcome a certain reluctance each time he had to call her “Sister Hedvig.” Without saying anything Hedvig acquired the habit of knocking at his door before she entered the room. She did this with a strange feeling half of bitterness and half of satisfaction. Her suspiciousness found the change in Percy’s manners wounding. But in her inmost heart she proudly understood what it really meant. Officially she was as much a stranger in his world as ever before. But it was a fact that she no longer walked through the picture galleries with lowered eyes. Though she did not admit it to herself, certain echoes of what he had said concerning pleasure and beauty being something self-evident would crop up in her thoughts. After a youth which had been haunted by the ghost of poverty, she sometimes felt a shiver run through her in the presence of this magnificent house and of all she had heard about his wealth. It was really something hitherto hidden and downtrodden in her Selamb soul that very cautiously raised its head.
From this moment Sister Hedvig began to develop a certain coquetry. If she read a silent question in Percy Hill’s eyes she purposely appeared dull and impenetrable. Her instinct told her that a man like him was attracted by the unknown, by what was unlike himself. Consequently she carefully avoided betraying anything of the change that had taken place in herself. She well remembered what he had said about the image of the saint in Toledo and about the sparks from the stake in her eyes. So she now appeared really pale and dark and Spanish. And with secret joy she saw that the Spanish effect did its work. The cool and mocking light had disappeared from Percy’s eyes. Instead there sometimes came a shy and nervous look of supplication. He was clearly in love with her.
Then Stellan called, just at the right moment. He came from what seemed to have been a family council of the Selambs. Curiosity had been stimulated enormously of late. Percy was so rich that you could not help reflecting. Nothing was impossible. It might mean marriage, it might mean a bequest in his will. One did not know if he was going to live or die. Neither Peter nor Laura knew Percy Hill enough to call on him. Hedvig herself was impossible to approach. Laura had tried over the telephone but had, of course, got nothing out of her.
Then at last Stellan came home from a command in Norrland and was sent out to Hill’s villa at once to reconnoitre.
It was a clear, warm, sunny day after a long spell of cruelly disagreeable spring weather. Stellan had a strange gift of always bringing fine weather. Percy was sitting up in an easy chair in front of an open window facing south. Sister Hedvig had slipped away into the darkest corner with some kind of Christian needlework. Such April sunshine was still too much for her. Stellan had ridden out. He was walking up and down the room lightly striking his riding boots with his whip. At first he had been shocked for a moment by Percy’s wasted look, but now he was already praising his rapid recovery. He always talked a lot, Stellan. He had a peculiar tendency to dwell with a mixture of envy and admiration on Percy’s precious art treasures, on his admirable patronage of art and his subtle intelligence. He also returned several times by sly, roundabout ways to the subject of wealth, and money.
“Yes, because Percy is the sort of man who must be reminded that he can get whatever he wants,” he said. “He will forget to keep alive if you don’t remind him.”
Stellan was insistent as if at one and the same time he had wished to free Percy from his lack of self-confidence and rouse him from the lassitude of his illness. Percy listened with his eyes half-closed. Of course he did not take all this seriously. But in his present frame of mind he enjoyed Stellan’s talk, all the same. It blended with the clear strong sunshine and seemed to hold out something like a promise of life.
Hedvig in her corner also listened to this glorification of Percy. She suspected that Stellan was also addressing himself to her. When he returned to the subject of money and to the wonderful opportunities of becoming rich she looked down at her work and continued her sewing with feverish haste. She detested him and yet she wanted to hear more. She grew hot and cold by turns. To save her life she could not have looked up.
But Stellan walked up and down between the two and observed them with cool and cheerful curiosity. He felt strangely elated. And then his black horse neighed outside by the gate post, and a loud and festive flourish of trumpets
