“I don’t think I can.”
“But why?”
“Well, at least not at once.”
“Why?”
She lowered her voice:
“No, it won’t be ... all over here for another few days....”
“All over!” Then a human being lay dying at the other end of the wire! Stellan felt a cold shiver. He looked at Laura, who sat there in low-cut evening frock polishing her nails. He looked around him in the coquettish little room. All over in a few days. All over! How curiously Hedvig had said that. It was as if she had wanted to force the thought of death on him like a tablespoonful of medicine.
“Well, ... I may tell poor Percy that you will come when you ... you are free?”
“Yes, I suppose I must give up my idea of resting a little.”
Then she rang off.