He suddenly made a gesture embracing the castles and the acres of Trefvinge.
“Look here, Manne, all this that seems so safe and still—shall we cut through the pack for it tonight?”
When these words escaped Stellan he had still no second thought. It looked as if Manne did not at first understand what he meant. He remained silent for a long time, but then he mumbled too:
“Yes. Let’s cut for it.”
There was a strange dull note of relief in his voice. It was as if his friend had relieved him of the burden of willing and choosing for himself.
Thoughts flashed quick as lightning through Stellan’s brain. It was now that he began to feel a strange assurance that he would somehow win. His words came quick, like rapier thrusts:
“I have an unopened pack of cards with me. We will simply back our luck. He who draws the highest heart stays. The other leaves early tomorrow morning on the clear understanding that he does not intend to come back.”
Manne was paler than ever and had a vacant look in his eyes:
“Right you are!”
Stellan ran inside to his room and searched for the cards. The lamp was not lit. He had to search for a long time in his suit case. Meanwhile he was thinking swift as lightning. “Manne must not draw the highest heart,” he thought, “No, not this time. For then all is over with me. …” The shiver and the dizziness he had felt in the park returned. “No, Manne must not draw the highest card. …” At last he found the pack of cards, picked it up with trembling hands and pressed his thumb nail hard into the edge of the ace of hearts as it peeped out through the round hole in the wrapper. There must be quite a noticeable mark on the other side … Stellan had not premeditated this, had never before done anything of the kind. He felt something approaching surprise.
“Well, that is what we Selambs do,” he muttered to himself. Quickly he went back to Manne’s room and flung the pack on the table:
“You open the pack and shuffle!”
Manne took up the pack and shuffled slowly, almost indifferently. Stellan sat down opposite him.
“We must avoid misunderstandings,” he said. “The two is lowest and the ace highest, isn’t that so?”
“Good!”
With a gesture indicative of long practice Manne spread the cards out fan-like on the polished surface of the mahogany table:
“You draw first, as I shuffled.”
Stellan’s eyes looked searchingly at the fan for the marked card. No, he could not see it. He must gain time. He opened his cigarette case:
“Let us smoke a cigarette together, before we draw. It will be the most exquisite cigarette we ever smoked together. A cigarette with Fate. …”
“All right!”
The cigarettes were finished. Stellan had to draw. Now he saw the ace on the extreme right. The little mark on the back of the card was noticeable in a tiny reflection from the lamp. Stellan had a feeling of being lifted off the floor, of soaring. But he did not dare to draw the ace at once. That would have looked too strange. He had to minimize the risk.
“Look here, Manne,” he said, smilingly. “Supposing I draw a low heart straight off and you draw a club. Then it would be sudden death. That would be idiotic extravagance with our precious excitement. We will continue to draw till each of us has at least one heart and after that the highest wins.”
“All right,” said Manne. His tone had become more and more obviously indifferent.
Stellan drew the nine of clubs. He saw Manne’s hand hovering over the cards with cold excitement. But it stopped at the harmless end and drew the ace of spades.
Next draw. Not even now could Stellan make up his mind to take the ace of hearts. He drew a card beside it, thinking that Manne, in obedience to some psychological law, would try his luck at the other end. He drew the two of clubs.
Manne drew the knave of hearts. A cry escaped him. It sounded as if he had hurt himself.
Stellan had not drawn a heart yet. Now he had to take it. He felt strangely frightened. It seemed as if he were about to put his hand into somebody else’s purse. He felt as if all his fellow officers were sitting round him staring at his fingers. “No, damn it, what am I really doing,” he thought. Then he pulled himself together. “Bah—you must throw out ballast—keep afloat. And nobody knows!”
He turned up the ace.
Manne leaned back in his chair with a little tired smile, a smile of sad, weary, pathetic relief.
“Congratulations,” he muttered, “congratulations. Fate was right that time, perfectly right.”
They smoked for a moment in silence. Stellan wanted to say something encouraging but could not get the words over his lips. It was Manne who took up the thread again:
“I say, Stellan, don’t you sometimes shudder at life … and yourself?”
“When some excitement is over, I sometimes feel discomfort. …”
Manne’s voice sounded childishly pleading:
“Yes, but Stellan, have you never experienced moments when you really shudder at yourself … at all the miserable and damnable things one has done?”
“No, I have never permitted myself that luxury.”
Marine looked at him with a mien in which for the first time there was something of a stranger.
“You are a bit of a barbarian after all, my dear Stellan,” he mumbled, “You have a queer insensibility on which to fall back. I am damned if I know how it is but I have never been able to will anything when I have been with you. But I will tell you this much, I should never have entered into this folly if I had not made up my mind beforehand to escape from it all. It’s disquieting to play for a living human being. … No, away with it all. …”
“My dear Manne, I can’t help it if you only
