Part 3

When she did make her appearance, her mind was not occupied with yesterday, but with something quite different. This Mrs. Dawes felt at once. The queen of the ball told nothing about the ball. She contented herself with asking if they had been awakened. Then she went and had something to eat. When she came back, her father told her that Joergen had called to ask how she was. Marit smiled.

"Do you not like Joergen?" asked Mrs. Dawes.

"Yes."

"Why did you smile, then?"

"He ate so much."

"His father, the Amtmand, does the same," remarked Krog, laughing. "And he always picks out the daintiest morsels."

"Yes, exactly."

Mrs. Dawes sat waiting for what was to come next; for something was coming. Marit left the room; in a short time she appeared again with her hat on and a parasol in her hand.

"Are you going out?" asked Mrs. Dawes.

Marit was standing pulling on her gloves.

"I am going to order visiting-cards."

"Have you no cards?"

"Yes, but they are not suitable now."

"Why not?" said Mrs. Dawes, much surprised. "You thought them so pretty when we bought them, in Italy."

"Yes--but what I don't think suits me any longer is the name."

"The name?"

Both looked up.

"I feel exactly as if it were no longer mine."

"Marit does not suit you?" said Mrs. Dawes.

Her father added gently: "It was your mother's name."

Marit did not answer at once; she felt the dismay in her father's eyes.

"What do you wish to be called, then, child?" It was again Mrs. Dawes who spoke.

"Mary."

"Mary?"

"Yes. That suits better, it seems to me."

The silent astonishment of her companions evidently troubled her. She added:

"Besides, we are going to America now. There they say Mary."

"But you were baptised Marit," put in her father at last.

"What does that matter?"

"It stands in your certificate of baptism, child," added Mrs. Dawes; "it is your name."

"Yes, it is in the certificate, no doubt--but not in me."

The others stared.

"This grieves your father, child."

"Father is welcome to go on calling me Marit."

Mrs. Dawes looked at her sorrowfully, but said no more. Marit had finished putting on her gloves.

"In America I am called Mary. I know that. Here is a specimen card. It looks nice; doesn't it?"

She drew a very small card from her card-case. Mrs. Dawes looked at it, then handed it to Anders. Upon it was inscribed in minute Italian characters:

_Mary Krog._

Anders looked at it, looked long; then laid it on the table, took up his newspaper, and sat as if he were reading.

"I am sorry, Father, that you take it in this way."

Anders Krog said once more, gently, without looking up from his newspaper: "Marit is your mother's name."

"I, too, am fond of Mother's name. But it does not suit me."

She quietly left the room. Mrs. Dawes, who was sitting at the window, watched her going along the street. Anders Krog laid down the newspaper; he could not read. Mrs. Dawes made an attempt to comfort him. "There is something in what she says; Marit no longer suits her."

"Her mother's name," repeated Anders Krog; and the tears fell.

THREE YEARS LATER

Three years later, in Paris, on a beautiful spring day after rain, Mary and her relation, Alice Clerc, drove down the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne towards the gilded entrance gate. The two had made each other's acquaintance in America, and had met again a year ago in Paris. Alice Clerc lived in Paris now with her father. Mr. Clerc had been the principal dealer in works of art in New York. His wife was a Norwegian lady of the Krog family. After her death he sold his enormous business. The daughter had been brought up in art surroundings, and her art training had been thorough. She had seen the picture-galleries and museums of all countries--had dragged her father as far as Japan. Their house in the Champs Elysees was full of works of art. And she had her own studio there; she modelled. Alice was no longer young; she was a stout, strong person, good-natured and lively.

Anders Krog and his companions had this year come from Spain. The two friends were talking of a portrait of Mary which had been sent from Spain to Alice, and afterwards to Norway. Alice maintained that the artist had plainly intended to produce a resemblance to Donatello's St. Cecilia--in the position of the head, in the shape of the eye, in the line of the neck, and the half-open mouth. But, interesting as this experiment might be, it took away from the likeness. It was, for instance, a loss to the portrait that the eyes were not seen; they were cast down, as in Donatello's work. Mary laughed. It was on purpose to have this resemblance brought out that she had sat for it.

Alice now began to talk about a Norwegian engineer officer whom she had known since the days when she went to Norway in summer with her mother. He had seen Mary's portrait at the Clercs' house, and had fallen in love with it.

"Really?" answered Mary absently.

"He is not the ordinary man, I assure you, nor is it the ordinary falling in love."

"Indeed?"

"I am preparing you. You will of course meet at our house."

"Is that necessary?"

"Very. At least I shall be made to pay for it if you don't."

"Dear me! is he dangerous?"

Alice laughed: "I find him so, at any rate."

"O ho! that alters the situation."

"Now you are misunderstanding me. Wait till you see him."

"Is he so very good-looking?"

Alice laughed. "No, he is positively ugly. Just wait."

As they drove on, the Avenue became more crowded; it was one of the great days.

"What is his name?"

"Frans Roey."

"Roey? That is our lady doctor's name--Miss Roey."

"Yes, she is his sister, he often talks of her."

"She is a fine-looking woman."

Alice drew herself up. "You should see _him_. When I walk with him in the street, people turn round to take another look at him. He is a giant! But not of the kind that run to muscle and flesh. No, very tall, agile."

"A trained athlete, I suppose?"

"Magnificent! His strength is what he is proudest of and delights most in displaying."

"Is he stupid, then?"

"Stupid? Frans Roey?----" She leaned back again, and Mary asked no more.

They had been late in setting out. Endless rows of returning carriages passed them. The three broad driving-roads of the Avenue were crowded. The nearer they came to the iron gate where these three meet in one, the more compact did the rows become. The display of light, many-coloured spring costumes on this first day of sunshine after rain was a unique sight. Amongst the fresh foliage the carriages looked like baskets of flowers among green leaves--one behind the other, one alongside of the other, without beginning, without end.

At the iron gate they came close to the undulating crowd of pedestrians. No sooner were they inside than a disturbance communicated itself from right to left. The people on the right must see something invisible to the others. Some of them were screaming and pointing in the direction of the lakes; the carriages were ordered to drive either to the side or into the cross-roads; the agitation increased; it was soon universal. Gendarmes and park-keepers rushed hither and thither; the carriages were packed so closely together that none of them could move on. A broad space in the centre was soon clear for a considerable distance. All gazed, all questioned ... there it came! A pair of frantic horses with a heavy carriage behind them. On the box both coachman and groom were to be seen. There must have been a struggle, since there had been time to clear the way; or else the horses must have bolted a long way off. Up here, inside the gate, all the carriages had disappeared from the central passage. Alice's stood blocked nearest the gate, against the left footpath. They hear shouts behind them; probably the whole Avenue is being cleared. But no one looks that way, all gaze straight ahead, at the magnificent animals that are tearing frantically towards them. Driven by curiosity, the crowds on both sides swayed back and forwards. Terrified voices outside the gate cried: "Shut the gates!" A furious protest, a thousand-voiced jeer, answered them from within. In the carriages every one was standing; many had mounted the seats, Mary and Alice among the number. It seemed as if the horses' pace increased the nearer they came; both coachman and groom were tugging at the reins with might and main, but this only excited them the more. A man wearing a tall hat was leaning his whole body out of the carriage, probably to discover where he was going to break his neck. Some dogs were following, with strenuous protest. Up here they allured others on to the road, but these did not venture far out. Two or three that did, knocked up against each other with such violence that one fell and was run over; the carriage bounded, the dog howled; his comrades stopped for a moment.

Now a man, disengaging himself from the crowd at the iron gate, ran into the middle of the road. People shouted to him; they waved with sticks and umbrellas; they threatened. Two gendarmes ventured out a few steps after him and gesticulated and shouted; a single park-keeper inside the gate did the same, but ran back terrified. Instead of attending to these shouts and threats, the man measured the horses with his eye, moved to the left, to the right, back again to the left ... evidently preparing to throw himself on them.

The moment the crowd comprehended this, it became silent, so silent that the birds could be heard singing in the trees. And heard, too, the dull, distant sound from the giant town, which never ceases, borne hither by the breeze. Its monotonous tone underlay the twitter of the birds. Strange it was, but the horses of the carriages drawn up by the roadside stood as intent as the human beings; they did not stir a foot.

The frantic pair reach the man in the middle of the avenue. He turns with the speed of an arrow in the direction they are going, and runs along with them, flinging himself against the side of the horse next him....

"It is he!" cried Alice, deathly pale, and gripping Mary so violently that they were both on the point of toppling over. Women's screams resounded wild and shrill, the deeper roars of the men following. He was now hanging on to the horse. Alice closed her eyes. Mary turned away. Was he running, or was he being dragged? Stop them he could not!

Again a few seconds of terrible silence; only the dogs and the horses' hoofs were heard. Then a short cry, then thousands, then jubilation, wild, endless jubilation--handkerchiefs waving, and hats and parasols. The crowd burst into the Avenue again from both sides like a flood. The space by the gate was filled in an instant. The frenzied animals stood trembling, in a lather of foam, close to Alice's carriage. Mary saw a grey-clad Englishman, an erect old man with a white beard and a tall hat; she saw a young lady hanging on his arm, and she heard him say: "Well done, young man!" A roar of laughter followed. And not till now did she see him who had evoked it--still gripping the horse's nostrils, hatless, waistcoat torn, hand bleeding, his perspiring, excited face at this moment turned laughingly towards the Englishman. At exactly the same time the man caught sight of Alice, who was still standing on the seat of her carriage. He instantly deserted horses, carriage, Englishman, and forced his way through the crowd towards her.

"Dear people, get me out of this!" he said quickly, in the broadest of "Eastern" Norwegian. Before Alice had time to answer, or even to step down from the seat, and long before the groom could swing himself down from the box, he had opened the carriage door and was standing beside them. He handed first Alice and then her friend down from the seat. Then he said to the coachman in French:

"Drive me home as soon as you can move. You remember the address?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Capitaine," replied the coachman, touching his hat respectfully, with a look of admiration.

As Frans Roey turned to sit down, his face contracted, and he exclaimed, catching hold of his foot: "Oh!----the devil! that brute must have trodden on me. I never felt it till now."

As he spoke, he met Mary's large, astonished eyes; he had not looked at her before, not even when he was assisting her down from the seat. The change in his expression was so sudden and so extremely comical that both ladies burst out laughing. Frans raised his bleeding hand to his hat--and discovered that he had no hat. Then he laughed too.

The coachman had in the meantime manoeuvred them a few yards forwards, and they were beginning to turn.

"I don't suppose I need tell you who she is?" laughed Alice.

"No," answered Roey, looking so hard at Mary that she blushed.

"Good heavens! Think of your daring to do that!" It was Alice who spoke.

"Oh! It's not so dangerous as it looks," he replied, without taking his eyes off Mary. "There's a trick in it. I've done it twice before." He was speaking to Mary alone. "I saw at once that only one horse had lost its head; the other was being dragged along. So I went for the mad one.--Goodness! what a sight I am!" He had not discovered till now that his waistcoat was in rags, that his watch was gone, and that blood was dripping from his hand. Mary offered him her handkerchief. He looked at the delicate square of embroidery and then at her again: "No, Miss Krog; that would be like stitching birch-bark with silk."

Roey lived quite near the iron gate, to the right, so they arrived in a few moments. Thanking them heartily, and without offering his bleeding hand, he jumped out. Whilst he limped across the pavement, erect, huge, and the carriage was turning, Alice whispered in English: "If one could only have a model like that, Mary!"

Mary looked at her in surprise: "Well--is it not possible?"

Alice looked back at Mary, still more surprised: "Nude, I mean."

Mary almost started from her seat, then bent forward and looked straight into Alice's face. Alice met her eyes with a teasing laugh.

Mary leaned back and gazed straight in front of her.

* * * * *

On account of the injury to his foot, Frans Roey had to keep quiet for some days. The first time he called on Alice, Mary, according to agreement, was sent for. But she felt so strangely agitated that she dared not go. Next time curiosity, or whatever the feeling was, brought her. But she came late, and hardly had she looked him in the face again before she wished that she had not come. There was an intensity about him which the fine lady felt to be intrusive, almost insulting. Her whole being was like a surging sea; she followed him with her eyes and with her ears; her thoughts were in a whirl, and so was her blood. This must pass over soon, she thought. But it did not. Alice's entrancement--love, to call it by the right name--audible and visible in every word, every look, added to her confusion. Was he really so ugly? That broad, upright forehead, these small, sparkling eyes, the compressed lips and projecting chin, produced in conjunction an impression of unusual strength; but the face was made comical by there being no nose to speak of. Very comical, too, was most of his conversation. He was in such high spirits and so full of fun and fancies that the rattle never ceased. His manners were not overbearing; on the contrary, he was politeness itself, attentive, at times quite the gallant. What overpowered was his forcefulness. Force spoke in his voice and glanced from his eyes. But the body, too, played its part--the strong hand, the small, foot, compact, the shoulders, the neck, the chest--these spoke too, they insisted, they demonstrated. One could not escape from them for a moment. And the talk never ceased.

Mary was unaccustomed to any style of conversation except that of international society--light talk of wind and weather, of the events of the day, of literature and art, of incidents of travel--the whole at arm's length. Here everything was personal and almost intimate. She felt that she herself acted upon Frans like wine. His intoxication increased; he let himself go more and more. This excited her too much; it gave her a feeling of insecurity. As soon as politeness allowed of it, she took leave, nervous, confused, as a matter of fact in wild retreat. She promised herself solemnly that she would never go back again.

Not until later in the day did she join her father and Mrs. Dawes. She did not say a word about her meeting with Frans Roey. Nor had she done so on the previous occasion. Mrs. Dawes told her to look at a visiting-card which was lying on the table.

"Joergen Thiis? Is he here?"

"He has been here all winter. But he had only just heard of our arrival."

"He asked to be remembered to you," put in Anders, who was, as usual, sitting reading.

It was a rest even to think of Joergen Thiis. Last winter he and she had seen a good deal of each other in Paris. Both at private houses and at official balls at the Elysees and the Hotel de Ville he had been of their party. He was a squire to be proud of, good-looking, gentlemanly, courteous.

Her father mentioned that Joergen was intending to exchange into the diplomatic service.

"Surely money is required for that?" said Mary.

"He is Uncle Klaus's heir," replied Mrs. Dawes.

"Are you certain of this?"

"No, not certain."

"And has not Uncle Klaus lost a good deal of money lately?"

Mrs. Dawes did not answer. Krog said:

"We have heard something to that effect."

"In that case will he be able to help him?"

No one replied.

"Then it does not seem to me that Joergen's prospects are particularly good," concluded Mary.

Roey was in France on special Government business, which often took him away from Paris. He had to go just at this time, so Mary felt safe. But one morning when she made an early call on Alice--the two had arranged to go into town together--there he sat! He jumped up and came towards her, his eyes beaming admiration and delight upon her. He seized her hand in both of his. She had never beheld such radiant happiness. She felt herself turn scarlet. Alice laughed, which made things worse. But Frans Roey's loquacity came to their assistance. It was excessive to-day even for him. He plunged at once into a description of a gigantic foundry from which he had just come, and drew them along with him. They saw the half-naked men standing with their hooks on the edge of the stream of boiling, bubbling, fiery-red metal; they felt the power of the machinery, and saw the human beings creeping among it like cautious ants in a giant forest. He tried, too, to explain this machinery to them in detail. And he made them understand perfectly; but time wore on, and the two friends had to go.

Alice was in the best of spirits during their drive. It was so evident that Frans had made a strong impression to-day.

On the following morning Mary went off on a motor excursion with some American friends. She was away for several days. And the first thing she did on her return was to call on Alice. There, sure enough, sat Frans Roey! Both he and Alice jumped up, delighted. Alice embraced and kissed her. "Runaway, runaway!" she exclaimed. It is not enough to say that Frans Roey's eyes sparkled; they fired a royal salute. From the moment Mary shook hands with him, he talked incessantly. He was so foolishly in love that Alice began to feel alarmed. Fortunately he had to go soon, to keep a business appointment. Mary was left in a stormy swell; the sea would not go down. Alice saw this and tried to calm her by eager, anxious attempts to explain him. But this only further confused her; she left.

As she came downstairs to join her father and Mrs. Dawes in the afternoon--she had felt it necessary to take a rest--she heard piano-playing. She knew at once that it was Joergen Thiis who was entertaining the old people. He was a first-rate musician, and he loved their piano. It was to go with them to Norway. She went straight up to him, and thanked him for being so attentive to her father and Aunt Eva; unfortunately they were left much alone. He replied that their appreciation of his music gratified him exceedingly, and that the piano was a great attraction, being a particularly fine instrument.

The conversation during and after dinner showed Mary how accustomed these three were to be together; they could do without her. She felt really grateful, and they had a pleasant evening. There was much talk of home, for which the old people were longing.

Joergen was hardly gone before Mrs. Dawes said: "What a pleasant, well-bred man Joergen is, child!"

Anders looked at Mary and smiled.

"At what are you smiling, Father?"

"Nothing"--his smile growing broader.

"You want to know my opinion of him?"

"Yes, what do you think of him?"

Mrs. Dawes was all ear.

"Well...."

"You have not made up your mind?"

"Yes ... yes."

"Speak out, then."

"I do really like him."

"But there is a something?"

Now it was she who smiled. "I don't like the way his eyes seem to draw me in."

Her father laughed:

"To gloat over you like food. Eh?"

"Yes, exactly."

"He's a bon-viveur, you see--like his father."

"But, like his father, he has so many good qualities," put in Mrs. Dawes.

"He has," said Anders Krog seriously.

Mary said no more. She bade them good-night, and offered him her forehead to kiss.

A few days later Mary went to Alice's house at an early hour. Anders Krog had seen some old Chinese porcelain which he thought of buying; but Alice's advice was indispensable. At this time of day and in the studio Mary could be certain of finding her alone--at least alone with her model.

She went straight in without speaking to the porter. Alice opened the door herself. She had on her studio-dress and her hand was dirty, so that she could not take Mary's.

"You are busy with a model," whispered Mary.

"I shall be presently," answered Alice with a curious smile. "The model is waiting in the next room. But come in."

When Mary passed beyond the curtain she saw the reason why the model was waiting in the next room. In the studio sat Frans Roey. Thus early in the day and rapt in thought! He did not even notice them entering. This was the first time Mary had seen him serious; and seriousness became the manly figure and the strong face much better than wanton hilarity.

"Do you not see who has come?" asked Alice.

He sprang up....

The conversation that day was serious. Frans was in a dejected mood; it was easy for Mary to divine that they had been talking about her.