Then suddenly the quivering notes of a violin were heard. Here was a welcome excuse for delaying their departure. Ørlygur was listening with delight, as so often before, to his son’s playing; for a while all three stood motionless.
Ørlygur smiled; a smile that covered, perhaps, both his admiration and his aversion—the two conflicting feelings which Ormarr’s playing always seemed to awaken at the same time.
Then Sera Daniel spoke—simply and naturally:
“How beautiful!” But at the same moment he reflected that he ought to know Ørlygur’s character better than to say things like that. And by way of altering the impression of his words, he added, in an entirely different tone:
“There is the making of a fortune in that music.”
Ørlygur à Borg did not grasp his meaning. And though he knew that Sera Daniel would never dare to make fun of him, “the King,” to his face, he was on his guard. He looked at the speaker with a glance of cold inquiry.
Sera Daniel went on:
“In foreign countries there are artists who make fortunes by playing the violin. I have often wished that I were an artist like that ... it must be wonderful to travel from one great city to another and be rich. I have heard such men in Copenhagen, when I was studying there.”
When Ørlygur à Borg realized that the priest’s words pointed, not to impossible realms of fancy, but to a world of beautiful reality, the look in his eyes changed. So strange was his glance, so complete the alteration, that Sera Daniel flushed with pleasure at the effect of his words.
For a while Ørlygur stared straight before him, as if in thought. Great things were passing in his mind. Where others would deliberate at length, Ørlygur à Borg was capable of taking in a situation in a moment. He was thinking of Ormarr’s and his brother’s future, and with his wonted respect for sudden impulses, which he was almost inclined to attribute to divine influence, he made up his mind quickly.