Then suddenly he swings round, facing his wife, and utters these words:
“Now I know what it means. At last!”
Fru Egholm checks the wheel of her machine, and looks up at him with leaden-grey, shadow-fringed eyes. But he says no more, and she sets the machine whirring once more.
Peace for a little while longer, at any rate, she thinks to herself.
Sivert looks up stealthily every time his father turns his back; the boy is flushed with repressed excitement, the tip of his tongue keeps creeping out.
“Mark you,” says Egholm after a long pause, “I’m wiser perhaps—a good deal wiser—than you take me for.”
He throws out his chest with conscious dignity, lifting his head, and placing one hand on his hip as before.
Oh, so he’s still thinking of that quarrel of theirs this morning. Well, well, of course it would be something to do with the Brotherhood some way or other.
“You said I was wasting my time.”
“I didn’t say that.”