“Yes, here you have the boy. A handsome lad, don’t you think so? You, Stellan, have none. And yours ran away, dear Laura. But mine stands here as big as life. And Bernhard is his name.”
Bernhard grinned, a grin, however, that faded quickly away when Peter quite unexpectedly began to shower abuse on him because he had touched the whiskey without permission.
There followed a moment’s icy silence. Stellan went slowly up to Bernhard:
“We have come here for your sake,” he said. “My poor brother, whose strength is much reduced by his illness, seems to have got it into his head for some unaccountable reason that you are a relation of his. It is of course an absurd mistake. As I don’t like mystery, I tell you so openly in his presence.”
Bernhard fidgeted but did not dare to answer. He only stared at Peter, who, with eyes half-closed, seemed to be waiting:
Stellan looked like the incarnation of impersonal authority, hard as iron and firm as a rock.
“Surely you can understand that we can find doctors and lawyers to clear up this matter,” he said.
Peter was still silent, but he began to look as he had done in days gone by when he used to do a stroke of business. He winked with his right eye at Bernhard, whose face suddenly lit up:
“No, thank you, sir—that won’t work. That was too simple.”
Peter opened both eyes.