Читать книгу The Prodigal Son - Hall Sir Caine - Страница 6

XII

Alone and forgotten, a prey to the devilish voices which had tortured him in the time of his temptation, angry and unsatisfied although he had carried out his purpose and triumphed as he had intended, Magnus was in his room at the top of the house gathering up his belongings by the light of a candle.

They were few and not valuable--a little money, two or three suits of clothes, two or three pairs of riding, fishing, and snow boots, some musical exercise books, the "Book of Job," "The Pilgrim's Progress" (having illustrations of Apollyon with horns), and the precious flute with which he had beguiled those blessed evenings that now seemed to belong to another existence. He had sent for two ponies to take him to the farm--a saddle pony and a pack pony--and two small boxes held everything. When all was packed he came upon the remains of a bottle of brandy which he had kept in his bedroom as medicine, and he drank the spirit and threw the bottle away.

During that short hour of pain and degradation he heard at intervals the various noises of the company at supper below--sometimes in single voices, sometimes in climbing cries like the sounds of a geyser, sometimes in peals of joyous laughter--and his heart grew bitter. He could plainly distinguish Oscar's voice among the rest, at first quiet enough, but afterward loud and hilarious, and his very soul sickened.

"You fool!" said the other voices at his ear. "What did you expect? Did you think he would be overwhelmed with sorrow? He is glad; he'll walk over your head, and over Thora's head, too! Listen to him already--the sweet, unselfish, privileged pet of everybody!"

After the boxes had been sent down-stairs Magnus took a last look round, and then he tried to shut out all bitter thoughts and evil passions, for he believed that he was leaving that room for ever. It had been his home through seven long years, and some of them had been bad years, but some of them had been good, and the good ones filled the little place with memories of many visions.

The sloping roof, the dormer window, the deal furniture, the sheep's skin on the bare floor, and the sunflower pattern on the wall-paper were all ghosts of the dreams he had dreamt there. Some were dreams of the great things he was going to do for Iceland, but more were dreams of Thora, and remembering that both sorts were dead now, and that Thora belonged to Oscar, to save himself from further repining and to crush down the riot that was rising within, he blew out the candle and that chapter of his life was at an end.

But the devilish voices were not yet done with him. Going down-stairs he had to pass the door of the front room on the first landing, and he went by it on tiptoe. For years he had always passed that door on tiptoe, for it was the door to Thora's room, a holy place, half nursery, half sanctuary, as Thora herself had grown to be half saint to him and half child; but he was not thinking of that this time. He was thinking he must get out of the house without seeing her again, for she belonged to Oscar now, and if they were to meet and she began to thank him for giving her to Oscar--but God forbid!

Thora's door was closed, but the next room stood open. It was Aunt Margret's bedroom, and Magnus knew that a photograph of Thora was on the chest of drawers near the door. He had often envied it, and now he stooped to look at it for the last time, and the voices at his ear seemed to say, "Take it; it's all you are going to carry away of her."

Going down the last flight of stairs he heard the two sitting-rooms buzzing like the mill-house, and knew that others must have joined the party; but above all other sounds he heard the sound of Oscar's voice, clear as a flute, saluting people as they came in. "Listen to him! The darling!" said the mocking voices by his side.

Coming to the hall, he encountered some of the women of the town in their feast-day dresses, and with garden flowers in their hands. Hardly any of them looked at him, but all passed into the sitting-room, where Oscar waited to welcome them.

The hat-stand in the hall had been cleared for the new-comers, therefore Magnus had to go to a rail under the stairs for his overcoat and riding-whip, and while he was there Aunt Margret opened the door of the back sitting-room to ventilate the crowded place. She did not see him, for she had taken off the spectacles she usually wore, and he was standing in the shadow, but he saw everybody in the room, and Thora among the rest.

Thora was sitting by the wall, and the townspeople were going up to her one after another and offering their flowers and making congratulatory speeches. And she was thanking them in her soft voice and looking very happy.

Magnus was hurt by Thora's happiness. He had done all he could to make her happy; he had sacrificed everything; but now that he looked on her happiness he was hurt by it; and when Oscar went and stood by her chair, looking bright and proud, he felt hot with anger and hatred.

While he pulled on his overcoat he could not help hearing what was being said within the room. "Such an extraordinary thing, Thora," said one, "people in the town actually said it was Magnus you were going to marry!" "I heard that, too," said another. "I heard it at Olaf's, the silversmith's, when we were drinking coffee." "Such an idea!" said a third, "as if any girl would marry Magnus who could get Oscar!" And then Oscar's voice, large, expansive, indulgent, almost patronizing, "Tut, tut! You mustn't say anything against Magnus, Elisabet!" "But I hear Magnus insulted Thora this evening, and the Factor has turned him out for it." "Can it be possible? I saw him in the hall as I was coming in!" "No, no, not insulted--not insulted exactly," said Oscar's voice again, and then Magnus, sick and dizzy, turned away.

He was going out of the house with head down when the door of the front sitting-room opened and closed quickly, and he found himself face to face with Thora. She was trying to look sad, but the light of her happiness was still in her eyes, and her parted lips were smiling.

"I heard you were here," she said, "and I couldn't help coming out to see you. Oscar told me yesterday I was not to speak, whatever happened, but it seems so terrible that you should leave us like this."

"We made a mistake, and we had to get out of it somehow," said Magnus.

"I know," said Thora. "And of course I think it will be the best thing in the end. You would have had no joy of me, Magnus, and I should have been very unhappy."

"Perhaps you would," said Magnus.

"But it is a great grief to me that you will have to give up all the schemes you had set your heart upon, Magnus."

"I have given up more than that, Thora," said Magnus, and he tried to push past her and go.

The light of her smile died off her face, and with a wistful look, in a pleading voice, she said:

"I feel as if I am losing a friend, Magnus, and you are saying good-by to me for good."

"Not that exactly," said Magnus.

"Good-by, Magnus!"

"Good-by!"

They were standing with hands clasped in what they believed to be their last parting when the buzz of the inner room broke out upon them again, and a cheery voice cried:

"Thora! Thora! Where are you?--Oh, it's you, Magnus?"

It was Oscar, and at the next moment Thora had gone back, the door of the sitting-room had closed behind her, and Magnus and his brother were together in the hall.

"I meant to come out to you before, old fellow," said Oscar, "but they stuck to me like leeches, and I couldn't get away. I wanted to thank you for what you did for me this evening. It was too generous, too brotherly, and I can never be sufficiently grateful."

Magnus did not answer, so Oscar went on:

"You pledged me to silence, and you were right, plainly right; but, of course, I cannot allow the error about your motive to go much farther, and as soon as it is safe to do so I will set you right. People shall know the truth about what you did, and why you did it; and they will make amends for their mistake."

Still Magnus did not speak, so Oscar continued:

"It's too bad, though, that you should suffer in the meantime, and if there is anything I could do for you--in a material way, I mean--if you are in want of----"

But the dark fire that was rising in Magnus's face frightened him, and he could not finish what he wished to say.

"I don't care a straw what people think I did it for," said Magnus, "and I don't care a damn if they never make amends. You know what I did it for, and that's enough for me. I did it for the sake of Thora. I gave her up to you that you might love her and cherish her and make her happy, and be a better husband to her than I could be. But if you don't do it; if you ever neglect her or desert her or give her up for another woman, I'll take her back. Do you hear me?"--(Magnus swayed like a drunken man and laid hold of Oscar's arm)--"I'll take her back, and then--then, by God, I'll kill you!"

Saying this, he walked heavily out of the house, leaving Oscar with white cheeks and gibbering lips, alone in the hall.

His ponies were waiting for him in the street ready for the journey to Thingvellir. The night was dark, but the windows of the house were bright, for the blinds had been drawn and the sashes thrown open. A cackle of many voices came out of them, for the company within was now large and very merry. While Magnus tightened the girths somebody played a guitar, and as he was riding away Oscar began to sing.

PART II

"Impotent pieces of the game he plays

Upon this chequer-board of nights and days;

Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,

And one by one back in the closet lays."

I

Oscar did his best to keep the fire burning in the inner sanctuary--the fire of love and duty--but oftener than he was aware it flickered, and seemed to be in danger of dying out. He tried to tell the truth about Magnus, but as frequently as he thought out a way of doing so he was confronted by the ugly question which would surely be asked: "Can it be possible that you stood passively aside while we condemned Magnus for a vice he was not guilty of, and praised you for a virtue you did not possess?" The humiliation of speech like that would be deeper than the degradation of silence, and from day to day Oscar postponed the painful confession. Thus a month passed, and he had said nothing.

His position would have been easier if he had been getting on better with his work--if he could have felt it impossible that the Factor could regret the loss of Magnus. Then he would have said, "After all, though naturally you didn't think so at the time, everything has been for the best," whereupon the Factor would have said, "You are right, god-son," and after that he would have told all.

But his work was going badly, and there was no blinking the fact that he was a poor business man. On first going into the Factor's, on the footing the contract gave him, he rambled from office to warehouse with aimless and shiftless uncertainty, dressed with Bohemian freedom, and looking like a butterfly in a back alley. Then the Factor said, "Come, come, young fellow, we must be getting to work; choose a department and be responsible for it."

Oscar selected the export department. This brought him into relation with the farmers, and some of them cheated him unmercifully, concealing their inferior wool in the body of the packs he bought from them. Magnus would have rooted out both the bad stuff and the men who brought it, and they would have gone flying before his threatening face; but Oscar wished to stand well with everybody, and the firm suffered accordingly.

After a week he wished to change. He thought the import department would suit him better: "Very well," said the Factor. "Mistakes are made by the young as well as the old--buckle to at the imports, my boy."

The imports brought him into relation with the mates of steamers and trading ships, and they were quick to shuffle their responsibility for damaged freights onto Oscar's shoulders.

After another week he went back to the Factor and said, "I don't think a department is what suits me best, god-father--why not let me have a general supervision?" The Factor shrugged his shoulders, but replied, "I'm willing. You shall be my right-hand man, then, and I'll ease off as soon as you are ready."

But from that moment onward Oscar did nothing, good, bad, or indifferent. He was always running about like one out of breath, but he came at any hour in the morning and left at any time in the evening, and was always skipping off to see Thora. That little lady was entirely content, but the Factor was heard to say to Aunt Margret, "There was something in Magnus after all, Margret." And Aunt Margret was heard to answer, "Many a good sword is in a bad sheath, you know."

But one day Oscar came flying to the Factor in breathless haste with his mouth full of great news. The Member of Parliament for the town was dead, and the Radical party were already preparing to run a candidate--an out-and-out Socialist named Oddsson, an enemy of the old order in both politics and trade.

"Why shouldn't I go into Althing?" said Oscar. "I could protect the business against these rascally revolutionaries, and help to preserve the old principles."

"Let me talk to your father first," said the Factor.

The old friends agreed that the scheme was a good one. Not only was the man Oddsson a believer in Magnus's doctrine about the barter trade, but he was the champion of an agitation for establishing a new constitution in Iceland, which would abolish the Governor and set up a Minister responsible to Parliament alone. He must be kept out. In self-defense they must fight the common enemy! Oscar would be a good candidate, being young and bright and clever, and a personal favorite.

"But I cannot appear in the contest," said the Governor.

"Leave it to me," said the Factor, and he went back and told Oscar, who shouted with delight and shot off to tell Thora.

By this time Thora had spent a long month in radiant happiness. If she thought sometimes of Magnus's position, she remembered that Oscar had said he would set things right, and the delay counted for little, because she measured existence by days no longer, but by emotions, and she was conscious of one emotion only--love for Oscar, and therefore for everybody and everything in the world.

As the year was growing elderly and its withering winds made further excursions to the islands of the fiord impossible, they remained at home and romped like children or played the guitar and piano. At such times Thora was not without certain backward thoughts of Magnus, for the room was the same and nothing was different except the hour of the day, but there was always the difference of its being Oscar.

He taught her some Icelandic love songs, and she sang them in a thin sweet treble, which Oscar cheered tumultuously. It did not hurt her in the least that Oscar never took her singing seriously--he did not take Thora herself seriously. He called her "Baby Thora," and she christened him the "Bad Boy."

The moment he had left her sight she would send a letter after him, like a handkerchief he had forgotten. He always replied, and his letters were full of affectionate banter, but perhaps at the bottom of her heart she was a little disappointed with them. They were not quite lover-like enough; there were scarcely any of them she could not read aloud to Aunt Margret; there was hardly one that was her very own. But Oscar made up for every deficiency when he arrived himself, and on the day when he came with a hop, skip, and a jump into the sitting-room, and announced that he was to be member of Althing, she saw him for one moment great and glorious, like the top of a mountain when it has broken through the mist and the sun has flashed on to it, and then she said, "And now the Bad Boy must play with me--he hasn't played me blindman's buff since yesterday."

Thora was too happy to think of her happiness, but she told herself sometimes that there was only one thing wanted to make it complete--that Helga should come home to share it. She broached the subject to Oscar, but it was at a moment when he was immersed in his manifestoes, and he merely said, "Good idea! Splendid! Helga looks like a stunner! Send for her certainly if the Factor approves," and he went on with his tiresome politics.

She broached it next to Aunt Margret, who was less encouraging. Putting her spectacled face close to Thora's, she shook her ringlets, and said, "Don't be a ninny! Two's company, three's none!"

But Thora mentioned the matter to Anna also, and the motherly old thing was moved. "That would be beautiful if you could manage it, Thora," she said, "and if it should lead to bringing the others together, what a blessing it would be!"

After that Thora regarded herself in the light of the family peace-maker, and in this character she approached her father. The Factor listened to her with sympathy, for nature is stronger than lawyer's ink, and he had often told himself he had been foolish to part with his child. "Well, I don't see why she shouldn't," he said. "She might come for the wedding--or, say for a year--one year at all events. I'll write to the lawyer in Denmark."

By the same mail Thora wrote to Helga:

Dearest Helga:--Father is writing to the lawyer to ask him to send you back to Iceland. It is only for a year, so I hope mamma will not object. I am sure you will not when I tell you what is to happen. There is to be a wedding, and, of course, a party, and great goings on.

Dear, I am to be married to Oscar Stephenson, who has come back from England, and is so handsome and so clever. If you could see him as he is now, you would fall in love with him instantly, but he is so fond of me, and I am so happy. I was to have married his brother Magnus, but the engagement broke down, and now I am very sorry for Magnus, and if ever you hear anything against him when you come home you are not to believe a word of it, because Magnus is as good as gold, only I could not care for him, so it was no use trying.

Dear, there are such lots of things I want to tell you, but I must save them until you come. We have had bad trade this summer, and Oscar has gone into father's business. I am weaving a web of cloth for father's Christmas suit, but it does not make much progress, because somebody is always interrupting, and when you are about to be married there is so much to do--isn't there?

Dearest Helga, I have no more to write about now, so give my love to mamma, and mind you come before long, for the wedding may be soon, although nothing is fixed yet. Your affectionate sister, Thora.

P.S.--Come quickly. I am dying to introduce you to Oscar.

A fortnight later the Factor announced that he had heard from the lawyer in Denmark, and Helga was to come by the next steamer.

"The 'Laura,' and she's due on the first of November, and that's the day of the election!" said Oscar.

"What a good omen!" said Thora, and she sang her Iceland love songs all that evening through, for she was very happy.

II

On the morning of the day when the "Laura" was due, there was no sign of her on the sea, but that was a matter of moment only to Thora, who had been up early and down at the jetty before breakfast. The rest of the little world in which she lived were immersed in preparations for the election and were going about like dogs on the leash before the hunt begins. Oscar was flying to and fro with red ribbons in his button-hole; ponies were coming and going with red ribbons in their bridles, and red flags were hanging all over the town; but, nevertheless, there was a sense of uncertainty everywhere and an atmosphere of intense excitement.

The day opened dull and rayless, with a pale sun behind a slaty sky like a white wafer on an old parchment. An hour before the polling booths opened the Governor called upon the Factor, under pretense of his morning's walk, and said:

"I'm doubtful of the result, Neilsen, and I now see that Oscar was the worst possible candidate to stand for our cause. Everybody who has a grievance against the Governor is going to vote against the Governor's son, and everybody who has a grievance against the Factor will vote against his son-in-law."

"Oh, I know the people, bless them," said the Factor. "Master when you want anything--slave when you don't. But we'll see, Stephen, we'll see!"

After finishing his breakfast comfortably the Factor walked leisurely to his counting-house and called for his ledger. It showed that nearly half of the electors of the town were indebted to him, some of them slightly, others deeply, and not a few beyond hope of payment without pressure or distraint. He counted up their total indebtedness, and it proved to be frightful. "But life is precious when death is at the door," he thought, and lighting his long German pipe, he put the leather-bound book under his arm and strolled quietly across to the polling-station.

As chairman of Oscar's committee the Factor had a right to sit inside the polling booth, but he merely asked to be allowed to take a chair outside the counter to which the voters would come up when they recorded their votes. "A low seat is often easy," he said, sitting with his face to the Sheriff and his back to the door.

When the doors were opened the Factor laid his ledger across his knees and took out a thick blue pencil. Then, as each voter came up to the counter and his name was called and looked up in the register, the Factor was seen to turn up the voter's account in his own book and hold his blue pencil over it.

"Whom do you vote for?" asked the Sheriff, "Oscar Stephenson or Jon Oddsson?" and if the voter answered "Oscar Stephenson," the blue pencil was seen to descend in two broad strokes across the account as if cancelling it altogether; but if he answered "Jon Oddsson," it was seen to score the total with a double underline as if marking it for immediate recovery.

The opposition had entered in hot haste, but the effect was instantaneous. A voter would come swaggering up to the counter, call his name in a robustious voice, and then (while waiting for the verification of his right to vote) see the Factor sitting below with his own account open before him, and, understanding everything in a moment, would begin to answer the Sheriff with a faltering, "Odd----," then pause, tremble, mumble "Stephenson," and go stumbling out of doors.

Silently, hour after hour, from the beginning of the day to the end of it, the Factor sat at his task, never once looking up from his ledger and apparently doing nothing but checking, as he had a right to do, the Sheriff's record of the votes. Aunt Margret came to say that dinner was ready, but he answered that he was not hungry. Toward three in the afternoon Thora arrived in great excitement to say that the "Laura" had been sighted outside the head, but he told her to meet her sister herself, and tell her that he did not expect to be home before midnight.

When the cathedral clock struck four the Sheriff rose and ordered the shutting of the doors. The short winter's day had closed in by this time, and while the counting was going on with its monotonous beat in the silence of the breathless room, like the splashing of rain on the pavement--"Stephenson, Stephenson, Oddsson, Stephenson"--the Factor, who had lit his pipe, was pacing the corridor outside, like a man who walks in his orchard when the fruit is ripe.

When the counting was finished the Sheriff told the attendants to open the window, and then the deep hum of a crowd which had been cheering and singing outside, with a noise like the waves breaking on a bar far off, rose to a roar, like that of the sea running up a stony beach. At the next moment everybody was shaking hands with Oscar, a band was beginning to play in the street, and the Sheriff was stepping on to the balcony.

Meantime Thora, fluttering with excitement of another sort, had gone down to the jetty to meet Helga. As soon as the "Laura" had steamed up the fiord and cast anchor outside the town, she put off in her father's white boat and drew up alongside. It was now quite dark, but lights were burning on the steamer and the dark figures of a line of passengers were silhouetted against the sky as they leaned over the rail and shouted to the friends in little boats who had come out to meet them. Thora was sure that Helga must be there, and she wanted to call to her, but her heart was beating so fast that her voice would not answer. At length the ladder was let down, and Thora's boat swayed up to it, and then she climbed up the steamer's side.

"Helga!"

"Miss Helga is below," said a voice out of the darkness, and though she felt a pang of disappointment that Helga was not waiting, she ran down the stairs to the saloon. At the bottom she called "Helga" again, and the stewardess said:

"The young lady is in her cabin."

"Which?"

"Second to the left."

Feeling conscious of increasing disappointment, but still panting in her eagerness, Thora skipped off to the cabin, and then came a shock of surprise.

Somehow she had expected to find Helga a little thing, grown certainly, but still smaller than herself. In her dreams of their first meeting she had pictured herself stooping to kiss Helga, and then in a sisterly-motherly sort of way putting her arms about her waist. But the young lady who came leisurely out of the cabin with her veil down and buttoning her kid gloves, was much taller than Thora and quite dignified and stately.

"Thora!" said the girl.

"So it is you--really you?" said Thora.

"Really me," laughed Helga, and then it was Helga who stooped to kiss Thora, who had to lift up her face to her.

Thora's heart was in her mouth in both senses. She looked at Helga again by the dim light of the saloon lamp, and felt herself small and insignificant. Helga was beautiful, with fine features, large gray eyes and rich dark complexion, and Thora felt herself to be plain and commonplace. Helga was fashionably dressed in the Danish manner, with the soft silk things about the neck and bosom which give charm to a charming girl, and Thora felt herself to be dowdy and countrified in her Iceland hufa and stiff velvet cloak.

"Have you come alone?" asked Helga.

"Quite alone," said Thora.

"But hasn't father come with you? Or Aunt Margret? Or that wonderful Oscar? Is there nobody but you?"

"Nobody but me," said Thora, and then, though she felt crushed and small, she delivered the Factor's message and told about the election.

"So that was the meaning of the band we heard as we were sailing up?" said Helga, and at the first moment Thora thought perhaps Helga had hoped it was in honor of her own arrival, but at the next she felt ashamed and foolish.

"We might as well go, then," said Helga, and she swept up the stairs, leaving Thora to follow. It was all so different from what Thora had expected--so utterly different--that she would have given anything to run away and cry.

But going ashore in the boat, she sat at the helm side by side with Helga, and there, the lights being gone, and Thora no longer in awe of Helga's fashion and beauty, she slipped her arm about her sister's waist, as she had always intended to do, and after that they got on better.

When they touched the jetty there was much shouting and scrambling in the darkness, and Thora was nervous and excited, but Helga was quiet and even amused.

"No carriages in this benighted country yet, I suppose?" said Helga.

"No, but I've brought Silvertop to take you up," said Thora.

"And what is there for you?"

"Oh, I'll walk--I love walking."

The street at the top of the jetty was thronged with the people who were waiting outside the polling place to hear the result of the election, and when the girls came to the crowd, which was good-natured but boisterous, they found it difficult to plow their way through until a big man stepped before them and swept the people aside like ninepins.

"What a tremendous creature that was," said Helga. "He could have felled an ox, I fancy."

"But didn't you know him, Helga? It was Magnus Stephenson," said Thora.

"Magnus? Why didn't he speak, I wonder?"

They had reached the outskirts of the crowd and were crossing in front of the polling place when the people raised a great shout, for it was the moment when the Sheriff stepped on to the balcony.

"He's going to declare the poll. Shall we wait?" asked Thora.

"It might be amusing," said Helga.

As soon as there was silence the Sheriff read the figures. Oscar had been elected by three votes to one. At this there was another hurricane of cheers, with cries of "Oscar!" "Oscar!" and Thora said:

"Oscar will come next. Shall we wait and see him?"

"Why not? It will be good fun," said Helga, and in the interval Thora patted Silvertop to keep him quiet, and creeping closer to her sister squeezed her hand.

Then Oscar came bounding on to the balcony amidst a wild breaker of applause, and behind him came two men bearing torches, so that his figure and face were plainly visible to the crowd below--his slight, lithe form, his fair hair slightly ruffled, his sparkling eyes, his mobile mouth and the never-failing smile that captivated everybody.

It was thus that Helga saw him for the first time since he became a man, and her face, which had worn a playful expression, became grave.

"How fine!" she said.

Thora could hardly catch the words over the sibilation of the running cheers, but she said:

"He will speak--shall we wait to hear him?"

"Assuredly," said Helga, and when Oscar began with "Fellow townsmen and fellow countrymen," Thora felt Helga's hand shiver and heard her say, "The same voice!"

Oscar's speech was punctuated by applause at the end of every sentence, and when it was finished, and the speaker and the men with the torches had disappeared, Thora spoke to Helga again, but she answered at random, and sat in her saddle like one in a dream.

Somebody else came on to the balcony and had a mixed reception.

"It must be father," said Thora, and then the Factor's voice, utterly indifferent to hostile interruptions, was heard to say that a supper had been prepared at the hotel for the committee of the successful candidate, and they were to go there at once--the new member would follow presently.

With that the crowd broke up, and the girls went their way--Thora clinging closer than ever to her sister, for her heart was warm with love and pride.

"Well," she said, "what did you think of him?"

"Think of him? Oscar?" said Helga. She laughed uncomfortably, and then stooped from the saddle and whispered:

"Only to think that a little thing like you, dear, should capture a man like that!"

Thora laughed also, but she hardly knew whether she was pleased or hurt. A sudden chill had struck her. It was like the breath of the mountain snow which sometimes comes down in summer.

III

The gods of riot were playing so hard a game with Thora that she was in a fever to introduce Oscar to Helga, and when he did not appear by noon of the following day she sent a letter across to Government House to order him to come forthwith. The "Bad Boy" was too full of his silly politics, while there was something far more charming and absorbing waiting for him there. But an answer came back from Anna to say that Oscar was still asleep, and after the excitement of the day before, and the late hour of the previous night, she was unwilling to waken him.

Early in the afternoon Anna herself came over expecting to see the first-fruits of the peace-making, and, while Aunt Margret was below stairs preparing chocolate for the company that was expected, the motherly old thing tried various artful ways of finding out from Helga what her upbringing had been in Denmark, and, particularly, what religious instruction and society her mother had given her. Helga saw through the device in a moment, and with her red lips a little awry she painted an alarming picture of theaters and concert-halls, and a flat in Copenhagen frequented by actors and actresses, especially on Sunday evenings, where everybody, including the ladies, smoked cigarettes and drank brandy.

Meanwhile Thora watched for Oscar out of the sidelight of the projecting window, and as soon as she saw him swinging down the road, she darted into the hall and threw herself into his arms and kissed him, whereupon, with his head full of his victory, he said:

"Congratulations, eh? The sweetest I've had yet," and pushed through toward the drawing-room.

"Wait, wait, wait! Somebody to show you!" cried Thora.

Then the poor victim of God knows what maleficent powers--not knowing what she did, but laughing merrily as if a song-bird had been imprisoned in her throat--began to play the old familiar trick of children; standing behind Oscar on tip-toe in order to reach, she put her hands over his eyes, and crying, "Forward, soldier!" marched him blindfold into the drawing-room and up to the place where Helga was waiting. Then, removing her hands sharply, she cried, "There!" and stood off to see the effect.

Oscar found himself face to face with a girl as unlike Thora as could be, tall, dark, with hair parted at the side and hanging over the forehead, dressed in a light silk blouse and silver-grey skirt, and having an odor of violets about her.

"Helga! Can it be possible?"

He stretched out his hand and Helga took it, and held it, and so they stood for some moments, while Thora, breathing rapidly, watched the changing lights in their faces: in Oscar's, astonishment, admiration, and rapture: in Helga's, curiosity, satisfaction, and delight. And Thora's own face, too--to the pitying angels who alone were looking at it--showed expressions just as various: pride, joy, then uneasiness, and finally a little twinge of secret pain.

To relieve this feeling, Thora burst into laughter, and then everybody laughed, and Aunt Margret came into the room with the chocolate and cakes.

"So you've brought them together again, Thora?" said Aunt Margret, and Thora swallowed a lump in her throat and answered, "Yes."

Then Oscar and Helga went over to the window and talked together with great animation. Thora heard snatches of their conversation as she carried round the cups. It was about things of which she knew nothing--Denmark, Copenhagen, England, London, Oxford, the English theater, the Danish theater, and, above all, music, music, music.

"How well they get along," said Thora.

"Trust them for that," said Aunt Margret.

Toward dusk the Factor returned home--not having altered his habit of work by a hair's breadth; and then came half the great people of the town--the Bishop, the Sheriff, the Rector of the Latin School, and finally the Governor. Helga moved among them with the quiet ease of one accustomed to company. Within an hour she had captured all the men, but the women were less sure of her.

"The minute I set eyes on her," whispered Aunt Margret to Anna, "I said to myself, 'Thora is a Neilsen out and out, but there's more of the stranger in this one.'"

"She's the living picture of what my wife was when I saw her first," said the Factor in a low tone to the Governor, who answered significantly, in the same low tone:

"Then I don't wonder, old friend--I say I don't wonder!"

"Helga's head and yours were nearer together when I laid my hand on them last," said the Bishop to Thora. "Take care! Your sister is running away from you, little one."

"Isn't she?" said Thora.

Thora did not feel quite so happy in Helga's visit as she had expected, but still struggling to show her off, she asked her to play something on the piano--she had played after breakfast and it was beautiful.

Helga played brilliantly, and Oscar, who turned over her music, applauded her boisterously.

"And now Oscar ought to play something," said the Governor. "From his earliest years he made us conceive the highest hopes that he might become a great musician."

"He will, too--my son Neils at the College of Music says he will," said the Sheriff.

"Nonsense!" said the Factor. "Oscar has something better to do now than to scrape catgut or blow his lungs through a steam-pipe."

"Still, an occasional flirtation with the muses," said the Hector, "you wouldn't object to that, Factor?"

"I would object to flirtations of all sorts," said the Factor, "and I should think the man a fool who put himself in the way of them."

"Surprising how many men do," said the Governor with a wink at the Rector. "Would you believe it--a certain friend of yours wrote a poem in the days of his youth!"

"Never!" cried the Rector, and while the old people laughed, the Factor said:

"When I was a child I behaved as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things."

"Well, I so far agree with the Factor that I think a man can't have his heart in two places at once," said the Governor. "What do you say, Thora?"

"I suppose not," said Thora.

"Certainly not, any more than a man can love two women at the same time," said the Governor; and then Oscar began to play.

He played as the bird sings because the song is in the soul of it, and when he had finished, the company cheered him lustily, and Helga, putting her face close to his, said in a whisper:

"And you asked me to play--I who only play as I am taught, and you can play like that!"

Oscar was delighted with Helga's praises and suggested that they should play together. They played a difficult selection, full of flourishes, and the company declared they had never heard anything like it.

"Wonderful, wasn't it?" said somebody.

"Yes, wasn't it?" said Thora.

She was feeling utterly eclipsed and forgotten when Helga wheeled round on the music-stool and said:

"And now Thora must give us something on her guitar--Aunt Margret says she plays it beautifully."

"Indeed she does--beautifully!" said Aunt Margret.

But Thora begged off in alarm, saying, "No, indeed, no! I couldn't possibly play after playing like that."

So Oscar and Helga began again. This time it was an English ballad. Helga played the accompaniment, and Oscar sang the air, and there was a chorus which they gave together. The company were completely carried away. "Charming!" "Exquisite!" "But how well their voices harmonize!" "They might have been meant by nature to go together!"

"Might they not?" said Thora.

"But now Thora ought really to play her guitar," said Helga.

"Certainly! Thora and her guitar," said Oscar. "And let her sing one of her Iceland love songs to it."

It was cruel, it was heart-breaking, it was almost as if Helga were trying to humiliate her, as if Oscar were joining her, as if they were conspiring together to expose her inferiority.

"No, no, don't ask me, please don't," she pleaded.

But Helga continued to ask and Oscar to second her, and being able to bear the strain no longer, Thora burst into tears, and fled from the room.

"How extraordinary!" said Helga.

But Oscar followed Thora and coaxed and comforted her and brought her back with a smile on her face, although the tears were scarcely dry in her eyes.

"I was silly," she said. "I don't know what came over me."

"Perhaps it was the heat," said the Governor, and he opened one of the windows.