When she is surrounded by attentive servants, she regains her courage and presence of mind.
“Take care of the horse, Andersson!” she says to the coachman. “These gentlemen who have driven me home will be kind enough to come in for a while. The count will soon be here.”
“As you wish, countess,” says Gösta, and instantly gets out of the sledge. Beerencreutz throws the reins to the groom without a moment’s hesitation. And the young countess goes before them and ushers them into the hall with ill-concealed malicious joy.
The countess had expected that the pensioners would hesitate at the proposition to await her husband.
They did not know perhaps what a stern and upright man he was. They were not afraid of the inquiry he should make of them, who had seized her by force and compelled her to drive with them. She longed to hear him forbid them ever again to set their foot in her house.
She wished to see him call in the servants to point out the pensioners to them as men who thereafter never should be admitted within the doors of Borg. She wished to hear him express his scorn not only of what they had done to her, but also of their conduct toward the old major’s wife, their benefactress.
He, who showed her only tenderness and consideration, would rise in just wrath against her persecutors. Love would give fire to his speech. He, who guarded and looked after her as a creature of finer stuff than any other, would not bear that rough men had fallen upon her like birds of prey upon a sparrow. She glowed with thirst of revenge.
Beerencreutz, however, walked undaunted into the dining-room, and up to the fire, which was always lighted when the countess came home from a ball.
Gösta remained in the darkness by the door and silently watched the countess, while the servant removed her outer wraps. As he sat and looked at the young woman, he rejoiced as he had not done for many years. He saw so clearly it was like a revelation, although he did not understand how he had discovered it, that she had in her one of the most beautiful of souls.