The two years had not greatly altered him, but he seemed more full of life and vigor than before, and success and hope had entirely banished the look of conflict which for so long had been plainly visible in his face. Sigrid felt proud of him as she glanced round; there was something in his mere physical strength which always appealed to her. “We were just talking about you,” she said, “and wondering when you would be ready to play.” “After that remark of yours which I overheard I almost think I shall have to eschew tennis,” he said, laughing. “Why should I give a whole hour to it when Herr Sivertsen is impatiently waiting for the next installment?” “Herr Sivertsen is insatiable,” said Sigrid, taking off her gardening-gloves. “And I’m not going to allow you to return to your old bad ways; as long as you live with me you will have to be something more than a working drudge.” “Since Sigrid has begun baby’s education,” said Frithiof, turning laughingly to Cecil, “we notice that she has become very dictatorial to the rest of us.” “You shouldn’t make stage asides in such a loud voice,” said Sigrid, pretending to box his ears. “I am going to meet Roy and to fetch the racquets, and you take him into the garden, Cecil, and make him behave properly.” “Are you really so specially busy just now?” asked Cecil, as he opened the little gate and joined her; “or was it only your fun?” “No, it was grim earnest,” he replied. “For since Herr Sivertsen has been so infirm I have had most of his work to do. But it is well-paid work, and a very great help toward the debt fund. In ten years’ time I may be free.” “You will really have paid off everything?” “I quite hope to be able to do so.” “It will be a great work done,” she said thoughtfully. “But when it is all finished, I wonder whether you will not feel a little like the men who work all their lives to make a certain amount and then retire, and can’t think what to do with themselves?” “I hope not,” said Frithiof; “but I own that there is a chance of it. You see, the actual work in itself is hateful to me. Never, I should think, was there any one who so loathed indoor work of all kinds, specially desk work. Yet I have learned to take real interest in the business, and that will remain and still be my duty when the debts are cleared off. It is a shocking confession, but I own that when Herr Sivertsen’s work is no longer a necessity it will be an immense relief to me, and I doubt if I shall ever open that sort of book again.” “It must be terrible drudgery,” said Cecil, “since you can’t really like it.” “Herr Sivertsen has given me up as a hopeless case; he has long ago ceased to talk about Culture with a capital C to it; he no longer expects me to take any interest in the question whether earth-worms do or do not show any sensitiveness to sound when placed on a grand piano. I told him that the bare idea is enough to make any one in the trade shudder.”