"Father, is it the case that you sent my portraits to exhibitions?"
He smiled, and said: "Yes, my child, I did. And they have given pleasure to many. I was asked to send them. They wrote and asked me each time."
He spoke in such a gentle voice, and Mary thought it so considerate of him that he had not told her, and had forbidden Mrs. Dawes to tell--probably Jorgen Thiis too--that she did what she very seldom did, went up to him and kissed him.
So this was what her father, Mrs. Dawes, and Jorgen Thiis had so often sat whispering about. This was why the home newspapers had been kept from her. Everything had been planned--even to the proposal to travel home at this particular moment! She almost began to like Jorgen Thiis.
When they left for Krogskogen in the afternoon, a crowd of young people a.s.sembled on the pier called: "Au revoir on Sunday!"
Mary was charmed with the view as they sailed along. The short half hour was spent, as it were, in recognising one old acquaintance after another. The new, or at least much altered, high road along the coast was now finished. It looked remarkably well, especially where it cut across the headlands, often through the rock. At Krogskogen it led, as before, from the one point across the level to the other, pa.s.sing close to the landing-place and directly below the chapel and the churchyard.
And Krogskogen itself--how snugly it lay! She had remembered its loneliness, but had forgotten how beautiful it was. This calm, glittering bay with the sea-birds! The ripple yonder where the river flows in, the level land stretching back between the heights, and these in their robes of green! Were the trees round the house really no higher? How nice it looked, the house--long and white, with black window frames and black foundation wall. From one chimney thick smoke was rising, in cheerful welcome. She jumped on sh.o.r.e before the others and ran on in front. A little girl, between eight and ten, who was running down from the house, stopped when she saw Mary, and rushed back as hard as she could. But Mary overtook her at the steps. "I"ve caught you!" she cried, turning her round. "Who are you?" The fair-haired, smiling creature was unable to answer. On the steps stood the maids, and one of them said that the child"s name was Nanna, and that she was there to run errands. "You shall be my little maid!" said Mary, and led her up the steps. She nodded to each of the women, and felt that they were disappointed because she hurried on without speaking to them. She was longing to set foot on the thick carpets, to feel the peculiar light of the hall about her, to see the huge cupboards and all the pictures and curios of the Dutch days. And she was longing even more to reach her own room. The silence of the stairs and of the long, rather dark pa.s.sage--never had it played such a game of whispers with her as it did to-day. She felt it like something soft, half-hidden, confidential and close. It was still speaking when she reached the door of her room; it actually kept her from opening the door for a moment.
Ah!--the room lay steeped in sunshine from the open window which looked over the outbuildings to the ridge. Paler light entered from that looking on the orchard and the bay below, the water of which glittered between the trees. Beyond the trees were seen the islands and the open sea, at this moment pale grey. But from the hill, now in fairest leaf and flower, the fragrance of spring poured in. The room itself, in its white purity, lay like a receptacle for it. There everything arranged itself reverently round the bed, which stood in the middle of the floor.
It was more than a bed for a princess; it was the princess herself; everything else seemed to do homage to it.
The excursion to Marielyst was in every way a success. But during the course of it a coolness arose between Mary and Jorgen Thiis.
It happened thus. Jorgen came on board with a tall, strongly-built lady, the sight of whose broad forehead, kindly eyes, small nose, and projecting chin brought a slight blush to Mary"s cheeks, which she concealed by rising and asking: "Are you not a sister of Captain Frans Roy?"
"She is," answered Jorgen Thiis. "For safety"s sake we are taking a doctor with us."
"I am glad to meet you," said Mary. "Of course I have heard your brother speak of you; he has a great admiration for you."
"So we all have," Jorgen Thiis declared as he left them.
Miss Roy herself had not spoken yet. But her scrutinising eyes expressed admiration of Mary. Now she seated herself beside her.
"Are you to be at home long?"
"I can"t say. Possibly we shall not travel any more; my father is not strong enough now."
Miss Roy did not speak again for some time; she sat observing. Mary thought to herself: It is tactful of her not to begin a conversation about her brother.
The two ladies kept together during the sail. And they also sat beside each other when dessert was served out of doors at Marielyst and speeches were made. The success of the entertainment went to Jorgen Thiis"s head. One after another came round to him and drank his health; he became sentimental, and made a speech. His toast was "the ideal, the eternal ideal." Fortunate the man to whom it was revealed in his youth!
He bore it in his breast as his inextinguishable guiding lamp on the path of life! Pale and excited, Jorgen emptied his gla.s.s and flung it away.
This sudden earnestness came so unexpectedly upon the merry company that they laughed--one and all.
Miss Roy said to Mary: "You met Lieutenant Thiis abroad?"
"Both this winter and last," answered Mary carelessly; she was eating ice.
A young girl was standing beside them. "He is a curious man, Jorgen Thiis," said she. "He is so amiable with us; but he is said to be a perfect tyrant with the soldiers."
Mary turned towards her in surprise. "A tyrant--in what way?"
"They say that he irritates them dreadfully--is exacting and ill-tempered, and punishes for nothing."
Mary turned her largest eyes upon Margrete Roy.
"Yes, it is true," said the latter indifferently; she, too, was eating ice.
When, late in the evening, after the dance, they were all trooping down to the steamer, Mary and Jorgen arm in arm, she said to him: "Is it true that the soldiers under your command complain of you?"
"It is quite likely that they do, Miss Krog." He laughed.
"Is there anything to laugh about in that?"
"There is certainly nothing to cry about."
He was in a very jovial mood, and would fain have put his arm round her and danced down to the pier, as many of the others were doing. But Mary warded him off.
"I was very sorry to hear it," she said.
Then he understood that she was in earnest.
"The fact is, Miss Krog, that Norwegians, generally speaking, don"t know what obedience and discipline are. During the short time we have them under command, we must teach them."
"Teach them in what way?"
"In small things, of course."
"By plaguing them about small things?"
"Exactly."
"Giving orders for which they see no necessity?"
"Precisely. They must learn to give up reasoning. They must obey. And what they do, they must do properly; exactly as it should be done."
Mary did not answer. She addressed another couple who now made up to them, and continued doing so till they all reached the pier.
On board the steamer she noticed that Jorgen Thiis was out of humour.
When they landed, he was not standing at the gangway. Without any previous arrangement, the whole party accompanied her home to the house on the market-place. They sang and shouted under the windows until she came out on the balcony and threw flowers down on them--those she had brought home with her and any more she could find. Then they dispersed, laughing and joking.
As they were going off, she looked for Jorgen; he was not there. This vexed her; she felt that she had rewarded him ill for one of the most delightful days in her life.
Entertainments, large and small, followed one on the other. But Jorgen Thiis was absent from them all. He had first gone home to see his parents, then to Christiania. Mary had never devoted much thought to Jorgen Thiis, but now that he kept away, she could not help remembering that she had chiefly him to thank for the happy meeting with the young people of her own age. And that remarkable toast of his--"fidelity to the ideal"--at the time he proposed it she had merely thought: How sentimental Jorgen Thiis can be! Now she thought: Perhaps it was an allusion to me? She was accustomed to such exaggerations; and she did not care in the least for Jorgen Thiis. But when she remembered how deeply in love he had fallen at their first meeting, and how all these years he had been exactly the same whenever and wherever they met, the matter a.s.sumed a more serious aspect. The gloating, greedy eyes acquired something almost touching. The fact that he could not bear to be with her when she was the least displeased with him was another proof of the strength of his attachment. His saying nothing, but simply staying away, appealed to her.
One day Mille Falke, the consumptive head-schoolmaster"s pretty, gentle wife, came out to see Mary. She had had a letter from Jorgen Thiis. A party of ten Christiania people had arranged a trip to the North Cape.
They had taken their berths two months ago; now circ.u.mstances prevented their going. Jorgen Thiis had been asked if he could not take the tickets and find nine people to accompany him on the glorious excursion. In the small towns there was more neighbourliness; it was easier there to make up such a party. Jorgen Thiis declared himself willing if Mary Krog would agree to go; he knew that in this case he would have no trouble in finding others.
Mrs. Falke laid the matter before Mary with the soft, feline persuasiveness which few could resist. Mary had, however, not the slightest desire either to sit on the deck of a steamer in the midsummer heat, or to interrupt all that was going on at home--it was much too pleasant. At the same time she was unwilling to offend Jorgen Thiis again. She consulted with her father and Mrs. Dawes; she listened once again to Mrs. Falke--and consented.
Early in July the party a.s.sembled at night on board the coasting-steamer which was to take them to Bergen, the starting-point of the excursion proper. They were six ladies and four gentlemen. The eldest lady was the respected princ.i.p.al of the chief girls" school in the town--mother of one of the gentlemen and former instructress of three of the other ladies. She was the moral support of the party. Two of its members were on their honeymoon, and they were teased by the others the whole time.