“The poor child has had a trying day today,” he said to the bailiff. “She seems strangely upset. I thought I ought to let her put off her apologies.”
Then he returned to his tart.
But up in her room Hedvig lay with the red case on her breast. Suddenly she tore out the brooch and stuck the pin deep into her left hand. Then she sucked drop after drop of the slowly oozing blood.
VI
THE TWO FAIR HEADS
The terrace at Selambshof was adorned with two small ship’s-guns on gun-carriages of decayed oak. They were spiked with pine-needles and twigs, and it was long since a birthday salute had been fired with them. Laura sat astride of one of these, swinging her legs lazily and catching maple-blossoms in her hat. It was a fine day in the beginning of June, and with each breeze there rained down over the old cannon golden green maple blossoms, and the pools glistened after the night’s rain.
Sometimes it almost looked as if an idyl could exist even in the presence of the sham Gothic of Selambshof.
The sun gently warmed the fair down on Laura’s neck. She kept behind the house today, because she had put up her hair for the first time, though only for fun, of course. She thought it would be jolly to see what sort of a face Herman would make. He would probably appear in the avenue soon.
Otherwise it was rather empty at Selambshof this summer. Peter was laid up with measles. And there was not even Hedvig to quarrel with. She had been sent away to an old aunt in Sala. Usually she had sat and sulked in a corner since the day when she behaved so idiotically to Brundin. It was impossible to get her down into the garden, for she was frightened to approach the bailiff’s quarters. And when into the bargain old Kristin died she became so refractory that old Hermansson had to send her away.
Not that Laura understood the reason. But when she sat lonely like this and looked at the shadows of the leaves dancing and jumping about and overtaking each other down on the gravel, it amused her to think of that story. And then suddenly Laura thought of Herman again. Why was he really so anxious to be alone with her lately? Herman was not like his old self, no—there was something strange about him.