“The old man gave five hundred,” said Peter. “I have seen an old receipt. He was always a good business man.”
“Aren’t you afraid to marry into old Enoch’s family?” cried Laura with a voice that had suddenly become quite gay. “Just look how like him I am.” And with comic eagerness she imitated his hard looks and pulled down the corners of her mouth.
But Percy looked searchingly round the circle of faces and his look rested with an expression of admiration on Hedvig:
“Isn’t the likeness all the same most striking in Hedvig?” he said lightly.
Not for a second did he shrink from the thought that she was of the same blood as the old usurer against whom the soul of a hunted and despairing artist had exploded its hatred before his eyes.
He was a dilettante, Percy Hill.
After the early dinner Percy had to return home at once. And Hedvig did not want to stay with the others round the coffee table.
“Now, I will leave you, so that you can discuss us more freely,” she said.
Hedvig was going up to her room. She had not gone many steps up the creaking stairs before she heard the dammed-up floods of talk of her sister and brothers released. Silently as a ghost she crept back to the door and listened. First she heard Stellan’s voice:
“The devil take me if I can understand Hedvig. I really did not think her capable of this.”