Sister and brother had not met during the whole summer. Laura tore herself away from the mirror with an effort. She looked at her brother searchingly. It was as if she looked in vain for something in his face:
“And now you have become a balloon pilot, too,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “How did you get that idea into your head?”
Stellan played with a small lady’s watch of about the size of a sixpence.
“Well, I did it in anger. I had to sell the Ace of Spades, and it got into the papers. So then I found a way of cutting out the cavalry. They look simply ludicrous down below on their horses.”
“Do you know what I thought when I read about your folly?” she said. “Oh, are his affairs in such a rotten state?” I thought.
“No, dash it all, don’t think it is a subtle form of suicide. Rather then as a new phase of my notorious passion for gambling. I must have excitement. It is a game with a rather higher stake than usual, that’s all....”
“My affairs,” said Stellan with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have no affairs, only debts. But they are of no importance anyhow. Just sufficient to keep me from getting fat. They keep one up to the mark.”
Stellan’s financial position was bad. And still his superior airs were not all pose. He did not worry over his position. If he had done that he would have been lost. It never occurred to him to refuse himself anything; on the contrary. He, Stellan Selamb, must of course live up to his position. The best was, of course, always for him and his like. It is an enormous source of strength to have such an inborn conviction. Because you usually get what you consider should as a matter of course be yours.
It was this elegant microcosm of upper class prejudices that kept Stellan afloat.
Laura looked at her brother with something almost resembling admiration. His assurance, his elegant bearing, his haughty smile, impressed her:
“There is an easy solution,” she said in a significant tone.
Stellan suddenly looked bored. He understood only too well what Laura meant. The great day of settlement was approaching when he would have to produce the heiress in anticipation of whom he had drawn so many bills.
“Damn it,” he muttered, “you too! My colonel attacked me the other day and asked if I did not mean to get married. He must have heard something alarming. And do you know what that idiot Ohrnfeldt said the other day when I got him to indorse a note for me? ‘It is your duty as an honest man to marry a rich girl,’ he said. Not bad, what? I am a positive enigma to those honest souls. They think I have let several fine chances slip through my fingers.”