After a murderous look at Hedvig, Laura hurried up to Peter. Rustling with silk she came, covered with jewels, the scalps of many men embedded on her swelling bosom. Her voice sounded anxious:
“Dear little Peter, don’t make any scandal, it would be an awful scandal!”
Then Stellan came up:
“You must think of our name. Don’t believe the story is forgotten. You are confessing that you swore false. A Selamb a perjurer! You can hear for yourself that it is impossible. That creature would be a walking witness to your perjury. It is not possible that you should make such a scandal!”
Peter half rose on his elbow. His pale, puffy face derived new life from his malice. He looked at them with an angry gallows-bird expression reminiscent of the great family quarrels:
“Scandal,” he panted, “scandal! That will be for you; scandal! I shan’t suffer from it.”
That was also an advantage in its way! Peter sank back on his pillow with an expression that almost resembled peace.
The dull barking began again. Once more Stellan saw the dark shadows tumble out into the twilight of the snow-lit garden. Now he was swinging a bottle in his hand. Carefully he staggered closer to the tied-up dog. Then he stood balancing and watching with a cunning smile till he could get in a blow on the head with the bottle. The glass broke and the contents ran out over the eyes and nose of the dog so that it crept into its kennel growling and sniffing at the strong alcohol. Now the passage was clear and the shadowy figure ventured to the window to look in. The face, suddenly pressed flat against the ice-covered window pane, looked grotesque.
Peter, who did not seem to be unconscious of these happenings, beckoned to the watcher to come in. After some scraping and moving about in the hall, somebody at last groped about for the door handle. The door was slowly and cautiously pushed open as if by a burglar and the dog-fighter came in. He remained in a corner where the light was faint, made a movement as if to take off a cap that was not there, whilst his street-arab face, blue with cold, quickly sobered and assumed an insinuating and fawning expression.
You could not say that the heir presumptive was exactly pleasant to look at. But Peter seemed as pleased as ever. He introduced his son with a mien of having quite unexpectedly, in the eleventh hour, produced out of his sleeve a small dirty trump that would win the game: