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"For twenty thousand, then?" "Not for twenty pence!" Lorentz Uthoug fixed his gaze on his sister's face; his red eyes began to glow. "You'll have to do it, Marit," he said calmly. He took a pipe from his pocket and set to work to fill and light it. The two sat for a while looking at each other, each on the alert for fear the other's will should prove the stronger.
"And what does the thing amount to?" asked Uthoug, his face coming out of the shadow and looking at Peer in the full light. "Two million four hundred thousand." The old man laid his hairy hands on the desk and rose to his feet, staring at the other and breathing deeply. The sum half-stunned him. Beside it he himself and his work seemed like dust in the balance.
And in walked a middle-sized man, of thirty or more, dressed in a black frock-coat with a large-patterned vest, and his dark hair carefully combed over a bald patch on the crown. He had a red, cheery face; his eyes were of the brightest blue, and the whole man breathed and shone with good humour. "I am Uthoug junior," said the new-comer, with a bow and a laugh. "Oh that's capital."
Then, taking off his hat, he came towards him and said politely, "It was very kind of you to help the girls down." "This is Herr Holm, engineer and Egyptian," said Merle, "and this is father." "I hear we are neighbours," said Uthoug. "We're just going to have tea, so if you have nothing better to do, perhaps you will join us."
Uthoug stroked his beard. "From a financial point of view the thing wasn't a success for him, I'll admit. But I can show you here what the engineering people say about it in the technical papers. Here's an article with pictures of him and of the barrage." "Well! he'd better keep his family on pictures in the papers then," said the widow, paying no attention to the paper he offered.
"What made you come just here for your holiday, I wonder," she asked suddenly. "I leave everything to chance, Froken Uthoug. It just happened so. It's all so homelike here, wherever one goes. And it is so wonderful to be home in Norway again." "But haven't you been to see your people your father and mother since you came home?" "I ! Do you suppose I have a father and mother?"
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