"Then sign on it."
"Don't sign!" cried Olive.
"He must sign!"
Larssen rushed back to his desk and scribbled on a sheet of paper: "Until May 3rd, I fix up nothing with the underwriters."
He scrawled his signature under it, and without further word hurried from the throne-room.
Matheson and his wife were left alone.
When Larssen had closed the door behind him, Olive felt as if a big strong arm of support had suddenly been taken away from her. Larssen's mere presence, even if he remained silent, gave her a fictitious sense of her own power, which now was crumbling away and leaving her with a feeling of insecurity and self-distrust.
Openly it expressed itself in peevish annoyance.
"Why couldn't you have stayed away altogether?" she muttered fretfully. "Nobody wanted you back. Your scruples, indeed! I must say you have a pretty mixed set of them. If you had had any consideration for me, you'd have stayed away altogether, instead of coming back and making scenes of this kind. I hate scenes! And why did you force that month's wait at the last moment? Now things are complicated worse than ever!"
Matheson waited patiently for his wife to finish the recital of her complaints. He wondered if it were possible to appeal once more to her better feelings. At all events he would make the attempt. The signature he had forced out of Larssen had given him back some of his self-respect, and he felt his brain as it were cleared for action once more.