"Merle, did you say your father was going to sell all this to the
State?"
"Yes, that's what it will come to, I expect," she answered. "The place
doesn't pay, he says, when he can't live here himself to look after it."
"But what use can the State make of it?"
"Oh, a Home for Imbeciles, I believe."
"Good Lord! I might have guessed it! An idiot asylum--to be sure." He
tramped about, fairly jumping with excitement. "Merle, look here--will
you come and live here?"
She threw back her head and looked at him. "I ask you, Merle. Will you
come and live here?"
"Do you want me to answer this moment, on the spot?"
"Yes. For I want to buy it this moment, on the spot."
"Well, aren't you--"
"Look, Merle, just look at it all. That long balcony there, with the
doric columns--nothing shoddy about that--it's the real thing. Empire. I
know something about it."
"But it'll cost a great deal, Peer." There was some reluctance in her
voice. Was she thinking of her violin? Was she loth to take root too
firmly?
"A great deal?" he said. "What did your father give for it?"
"The place was sold by auction, and he got it cheap. Fifty thousand
crowns, I think it was."
Peer strode off towards the house again. "We'll buy it. It's the
very place to make into a home. . . . Horses, cattle, sheep, goats,
cottars--ah! it'll be grand."
Merle followed him more slowly. "But, Peer, remember you've just taken
over father's machine-shops in town."
"Pooh!" said Peer scornfully.
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