“You don’t understand, Stellan. I can hide nothing from her. I can’t. I should go mad at once if I did. She is my reason and conscience, you know. We won’t go just yet, Stellan. It isn’t six yet. And I must ride a little before I talk to her....”
Manne poured out a glass of soda water and swallowed it in one draught:
“Ugh!” he said, “how awful it all was!” And then he suddenly began to talk about old Kolsnäs, about his father, the late chamberlain, who had taken part in the battle of Dybböl, and about his poor little shivering mother with her sewing basket and screen and fires well into June. And he talked about their long battle on the lake outside Stonehill and about their riding trips in the Backa forest.
“Do you remember it all, Stellan? Those were fine times, weren’t they, Stellan? My old home. It is a damned shame. What have I done with it all now? I am a traitor. Yes, a traitor. Curse it!”
Stellan, cold and numb, felt a shock pass through him. Was this how matters stood? Was it as bad as that with Kolsnäs?
“What nonsense are you talking?” he muttered.
“Stellan, old man, it ... you had better not go to the bank with my cheque ... not tomorrow, anyway....”
“Because there is nothing there, not a farthing.”
“You ought to have told Levy that. He won it from me.”
For the second time a shock passed through Stellan, as he pronounced Levy’s name. But Manne sank back in the chair staring straight out in front of him:
“I shall have to clear out,” he muttered, half crying. “Tomorrow I shall have to get away. What will ‘the Glove’ say?”
Stellan was again cool, tense, fully awake. He was one of those people who do not know the meaning of melancholy or remorse. Their egotism is so rounded and complete that such things do not touch them. Neither can they admit defeat. That would be the end of their world. Adversity to them only points forward to new opportunities to be seized.
Levy wants Kolsnäs, thought Stellan. Once again he sat there, tense, cool and collected with the blue vein throbbing in his forehead just as if the table and the cards were again before him. Levy wants Kolsnäs, that’s as clear as daylight.
Each time he thought of Levy he felt as if he had been pricked by a spur. He hated Levy, and during these moments he was learning a great deal from him. What was it Levy had said? “How can you find anything in this miserable gambling?” Yes, that’s what he said. Things which had seemed impossible before seemed all at once self-evident, final. Yes, of course, that’s it, he thought. I’ll trick Levy and save myself.