If Peter imagined that Frida now belonged to him, without any further expense, he was mistaken. A few more such moments and she considered herself free again. And so she let him understand in a delicate way that new favours had to be bought with new offerings. Peter suffered, but he suffered more in his greed than in his affection. He was so accustomed to think that everything depended on money that he could scarcely imagine a man being loved for his own sake. He puffed and whined—but paid. He did not even try to press down her demands by simulated indifference. Such is love.
So things went on for a few months. Then one fine day Peter received a letter in which Frida herself proposed a meeting without mentioning any fresh gifts. He was just about to welcome her, feeling heartily content, when he was checked by an inward shock. He suddenly remembered some land he had once bought when the seller in apparent absentmindedness had registered the transfer in his own name instead of the purchaser’s.
It was the only time he had ever been completely taken in.
Peter read through Frida’s letter again. It was too eager. It was not quite the same old Frida. He felt a slight presentiment of something unpleasant. A voice whispered in his ear to be on his guard. He knew what it all meant. He sat long and worried in front of the clean sheet of note paper. In the end he wrote something about important business which prevented him from meeting her just then. After this extraordinary exercise of self-control Peter felt very sorry for himself, so much so that the tears came into his eyes. He wandered about puffing and sighing among the fields of Selambshof, a victim of desire, suspicion, hope and fear. Into the bargain Stellan wired that he was coming home immediately from the North, so that Peter was obliged with a bleeding heart to screw the name-plate on to the door again and set out all the photographs of horses and ladies. Thus the discreet little free retreat for his amours disappeared from view. Then another letter from Frida arrived in which she begged and prayed to be allowed to see her own Elk very soon. Peter was really touched. It was sweet to hear her beg like this. All there was of hunger and love in his great body stirred within him. But he felt at the same time that the thing was growing more and more dangerous. “I must be strong,” he thought, “very strong.” And he did not answer the letter, not a line....