Part 5

"Quite so. But now you are misunderstanding me again. Whereas we are ordinary beings, whom other people may touch with impunity, she dwells in a remoteness which no one as yet has diminished by one foot. It is not from pride or vanity that she does so."

"No, no!"

"She _is_ like that. If she were not, she would have been captured and married long ago. You surely don't imagine that proposals have been wanting?"

"Everyone knows they have not."

"Ask Mrs. Dawes! She keeps a diary of them in her thousand letters. She writes about nothing else now."

"But what, then, is the explanation of it, dear Alice?"

"It is quite simple. She is gentle, sweet-tempered, obliging--all this and more. But she dwells in an enchanted land, into which none may intrude. She preserves it inviolate with extraordinary vigilance and tact."

"To touch her is forbidden, you mean?"

"Absolutely! Fancy your not understanding that yet!"

"I did understand; but I forgot."

Frans Roey sat silent as if he were listening to something far away. Again he heard the sharp cries of fear which thrilled through the air as he drew near, saw the terrified sign to the carriage, felt Mary's trembling body, heard the ejaculation uttered with all her remaining strength, saw her walk on, weeping. All at once he understood! What a stupid, coarse criminal he was!

He sat there dumb, miserable.

But it was not in his nature to give up. His face soon brightened.

"After all, dear Alice, it was only a game."

"To her it was more. You are surely not still in doubt as to that?"

"She has been pursued before, you mean?"

"In many different ways."

"Consequently she imagined----?"

"Of course. You saw that she did."

He did not reply.

"But now tell me, my dear Frans--was it not more than a game to you, too? Was it not all-decisive?"

He bowed his head, ashamed. Then he walked across the room and came back.

"She is a queen. She will not be captured. I should have stopped----?"

"You should never have gone after her. And she would have been yours now."

Frans seated himself again as if a heavy weight were pressing on his shoulders.

"Did she say anything?" asked Alice with a searching look.

He would have preferred not to tell, but the question was repeated.

"She said that I was no gentleman."

Alice declared this to be too bad. Frans then asked if Mary had said anything to her in the carriage.

"Not a word. But I spoke. I abused you--well."

"She has not referred to the matter since?"

Alice shook her head. "Your name is erased from her dictionary, my friend."

* * * * *

Some days after this Frans received by tube-post a hurried note which informed him that at eleven that morning the two ladies would again be at the exhibition in the Champs Elysees. It was eleven when the note came.

Mary had called to ask Alice to go with her to look at a Dutch coast landscape which her father wished to buy. They considered the price rather high; possibly Alice would be able to make better terms. Mary's carriage was waiting at the door. Alice left her, wrote hastily to Frans Roey, and then went to dress, which to-day, contrary to custom, took her a long time. They drove to the exhibition, found the picture, and went to the office, where they had to wait. After making their offer and giving the address, they returned to the ground-floor of the exhibition in search of the acrobat. He stood there now in all his manly strength. Alice reached him first, and exclaimed "Why! it is----," then stopped short and walked away from Mary. She examined the statue from every side, over and over again, without saying a word. Precisely that which distinguished Frans Roey--that his strength did not announce itself in distended muscle, but in the elasticity of a beautifully formed, lithe body--was to be observed here. Frans Roey's toss of the head, his broad forehead aslant in the air, his hand, his short, strong foot--everything was here! The statue affected the beholder like a war-song. For the first time Alice found the word for the effect which Frans produced. She was carried away by the statue as by the rhythm of a march. Exactly what she had often felt when she saw Frans walk! Was this likeness a curious accident, or had he really ... she turned quite hot and had to walk away from the statue and look at something else.

Mary had all the time kept behind Alice, who had quite forgotten her. The question now involuntarily occurred to Alice: Does Mary understand what she sees?

She waited a little before she began to observe. Mary, who was now standing in front of the statue, with her back towards Alice, remained so long motionless that the latter's curiosity increased. She went round and stationed herself among the statues opposite, put on her eye-glass, and looked across. Mary's eyes were half closed; her bosom was heaving. She walked slowly round the statue, then retired to a distance, came back, and stood still again midway between front and side.

Then she looked round for Alice and caught sight of the eye-glasses turned in her direction; Alice was actually holding them on, to see clearer. There could be no mistake--her face was one mischievous smile.

There are things which one woman objects to another understanding. Mary's blood surged; angry and hurt, she took Alice's look as an insult. She turned her back quickly on the acrobat and walked towards the door. But she stopped once or twice, pretending to look at other pieces of sculpture, really to obtain mastery over the uproar in her breast. At last she reached the door. She did not look round to see if Alice were following; she passed through the entrance hall and left the building.

But just as she did so, Frans Roey hurried up--as quickly as if he had been sent for and were arriving too late. He tore off his hat without getting even a nod in answer. He saw nothing but a pair of vacant eyes.

"Oh, please don't be angry any longer!" he said with his broadest east-country accent, good-humouredly and boyishly. Mary's face cleared; she could not help herself; she smiled, and was actually going to take his outstretched hand--when she saw his eyes travel with the speed of lightning to a point behind her and come back with the least little particle of triumph in them. She turned her head and met Alice's eyes. In them there was any amount both of mischief and rejoicing. There had been a plot then! Mary was transformed. As if from the highest church steeple she looked down upon them both--and left them. Her carriage was waiting a short way off; she motioned, and it came in a wide sweep to where she stood. There was no footman; she opened the door before Frans Roey could come to her assistance, and got in as if no one were there. When seated she looked--past Frans--to see if Alice were coming. Fat Alice was waddling slowly along. It was plain, even from a distance, that a wild struggle with suppressed laughter was going on within her. And when she arrived and saw Mary sitting in state looking to the one side, and Frans Roey, the giant, standing on the other like a frightened recruit, she could resist no longer; she gave way to a fit of laughter which shook her heavy body from head to foot. She laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, laughed so that it was with difficulty and not without assistance she found the carriage-step and hauled herself up. She sank on the seat beside Mary, convulsed with laughter; the carriage shook, as she sat with her handkerchief to her face, suppressing screams. She caught a glimpse of Mary's scarlet anger and Frans Roey's pale dismay--and laughed the louder. The very coachman was obliged to laugh too, though what the devil it was about he did not know. And thus they drove off.

Another unsuccessful expedition, another defeat of the highest hopes! It was a long time before Alice could say anything. Then she began by pitying Frans Roey.

"You are too severe with him, Mary. Goodness! how miserable he looked!" And the laughter began again.

But Mary, who had been sitting waiting for an opportunity, now broke out:

"What have I to do with your protege?"

And as if this were not enough, she bent forward to face Alice's laughing eyes:

"You are confusing me with yourself. It is you who are in love with him. Do you imagine that I have not seen that for ever so long? You know best yourselves in what relation you stand to each other. That is no affair of mine. But the 'De'[B] which you both keep up--is it for the purpose of concealment?"

[B] _You_ as distinguished from the familiar _thou_.

Alice's laughter ceased. She turned pale, so pale that Mary was alarmed. Mary tried to withdraw her eyes, but could not; Alice's held them fast through painful changes until they lost all expression. Then Alice's head sank back, whilst a long, heavy sigh resembling the groan of a wounded animal escaped her.

Mary sat motionless, aghast at her own speech.

But it was irrevocable.

Alice suddenly raised her head again and told the coachman to stop. "I have a call to make at this house." The carriage stopped; she opened the door, stepped out, and shut it after her.

With a long look at Mary, she said:

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" was answered in a low tone.

Both felt that it was for ever.

Mary drove on. As soon as she reached home, she went straight to the private drawing-room; she had something to say to her father. Before she opened the door, she heard piano-playing, and understood that Joergen Thiis was there. But this did not stop her. With her hat and spring cloak still on, she unexpectedly appeared in the room. Joergen Thiis jumped up from the piano and came towards her, his eyes filling with admiration; her face was all aglow from the tumult within. But something proud and repellent in its sparkle caused him to give up his intention of closer approach.

Then his eyes assumed the gloating, greedy expression which Mary so detested. With a slight bow she passed him and went up to her father, who was sitting as usual in the big chair with a book upon his knee.

"Father, what do you say to our going home now?"

Every face brightened. Mrs. Dawes exclaimed: "Joergen Thiis has just been asking when we intend to go; he wants to travel with us."

Mary did not turn towards Joergen but continued: "I think the steamer sails from Havre to-morrow?"

"It does," answered her father; "but we can't possibly be ready by that time?"

"Yes, we can!" said Mrs. Dawes. "We have this whole afternoon."

"I shall be delighted to help," said Joergen Thiis.

Now Mary bestowed a friendly look on him, before mentioning the price which Alice had advised her to offer for the Dutch coast landscape her father wished to buy. She then went off to begin her own packing.

The four met again before the hotel dinner at half-past seven. Mary came into the room looking tired. Joergen Thiis went up to her and said:

"I hear that you have made Frans Roey's acquaintance, Miss Krog?"

Her father and Mrs. Dawes were listening attentively. This showed that Joergen must have been talking with them on the subject before she entered. Every new male acquaintance she made was a source of anxiety to them. Mary coloured; she felt herself doing so, and the red deepened. The two were watching.

"I have met him at Miss Clerc's," replied Mary. "She and her mother spent several summers in Norway, and were intimate with his family there; they belong to the same town. Is there anything more you wish to know?"

Joergen Thiis stood dismayed. The others stared. He said hastily: "I have just been telling your father and Mrs. Dawes that we younger officers consider Frans Roey the best man we have. So I spoke with no unfriendly intention."

"Nor did I suspect you of any. But as I myself have not mentioned the acquaintance here, I do not think that the subject ought to be introduced by strangers."

In utter consternation Joergen stammered that, that, that he had had no other intention in doing so than to, to, to....

"I know that," Mary replied, cutting short the conversation.

They went down to dinner. At table Joergen as a matter of course returned to the subject. It could not be allowed to drop thus. All Frans Roey's brother officers, he said, regretted that he had exchanged into the engineers. He was a particularly able strategist. Their military exercises, both theoretical and practical, had provided him with opportunities to distinguish himself. Joergen gave instances, but the others did not understand them. So he went on to tell anecdotes of Frans Roey as a comrade, as an officer. These were supposed to show how popular and how ready-witted he was. Mary declared that they chiefly showed how boyish he was. Thereupon Joergen said that he had only heard the stories from others; Frans Roey was older than he.

"What do _you_ think of him?" he suddenly asked in a very innocent manner.

Mary did not answer immediately. Her father and Mrs. Dawes looked up.

"He talks a great deal too much."

Joergen laughed. "Yes; but how can he help that--he who has so much strength?"

"Must it be exercised upon us?"

They all laughed, and the strain which had been making them uncomfortable relaxed. Krog and Mrs. Dawes felt safe, as far as Frans Roey was concerned. So did Joergen Thiis.

At half-past eight they went upstairs again. Mary at once retired to her room, pleading fatigue. She lay and listened to Joergen playing. Then she lay and wept.

* * * * *

Next evening, on the sea, wide and motionless, the faint twilight ushered in the summer night. Two pillars of smoke rose in the distance. Except for these, the dull grey above and beneath was unbroken. Mary leaned against the rail. No one was in sight, and the thud of the engine was the only sound.

She had been listening to music downstairs, and had left the others there. An unspeakable feeling of loneliness had driven her up to this barren outlook--clouds as far as the eye could reach.

Nothing but clouds; not even the reflection of the sun which had gone down.

And was there anything more than this left of the brightness of the world from which she came? Was there not the very same emptiness in and around herself? The life of travel was now at an end; neither her father nor Mrs. Dawes could or would continue to lead it; this she understood. At Krogskogen there was not one neighbour she cared for. In the town, half an hour's journey off, there was not a human being to whom she was bound by any tie of intimacy. She had never given herself time to make such ties. She was at home nowhere. The life which springs from the soil of a place and unites us to everything that grows there was not hers. Wherever she made her appearance, the conversation seemed to stop, in order that another subject, suited to her, might be introduced. The globe-trotters who wandered about with her talked of incidents of travel, of the art-galleries and the music of the towns which they were visiting--occasionally, too, of problems which pursued them, let them go where they would. But of these not one affected her personally. The conventional utterances on such subjects she knew by heart. Indeed, the whole was either a kind of practice in language, or else aimless chat to pass the time.

The homage paid her, which at times verged on worship, had begun when she was still a child and took it as fun. In course of time it had become as familiar to her as the figures of a quadrille. One incident which alarmed the whole family, a couple of incidents which were painful, had been long forgotten; the admiration she received meant nothing to her--she remained unsatisfied and lonely.

A convulsive start--and Frans Roey's giant form suddenly appeared before her--so plain, so exact in the smallest detail, that she felt as if she could not stir because of him.

He was not like the rest. Was it this that had frightened her?

The very thought of him made her tremble. Without her willing it, Alice stood beside him, fat and sensual, with desire in her eyes.... What was the relation between these two?... A moment of darkness, one of pain, one of fury. Then Mary wept.

She heard a loud, dull roar, and turned in its direction. An ocean-steamer was bearing down on them--an apparition so unexpected and so gigantic that it took away her breath. It rose out of the sea without warning, and rushed towards them at tremendous speed, becoming larger and larger, a fire-mountain of great and small lights. With a roar it came and it went. One moment, and it was seen in the far distance.

What an impression it made on her, this life rushing past on its way from continent to continent, with its suggestion of constant, fruitful exchange of thoughts and labour! whilst she herself lay drifting in a little tub, which was rocked so violently by the waves from the world-colossus that she had to cling to the first support that offered.

She was alone again in the great void. Deserted. For was it not desertion that everything she had seen and heard in three continents--of the life of the nations, their toil and their pleasure, their art, their music--should have to be left behind? She had seen and heard; and now she was alone, in a dreary, stagnant waste.

AT HOME

The reality was something quite different.

She saw, the moment she set foot on land, that both old and young were unfeignedly happy to see her again. Every face brightened. Every one whom they met on the way up to the market-place recognised and greeted her with pleasure. She had not thought of them, but they had thought of her.

From the house on the market-place they were to go on later in the day to Krogskogen, with the coasting-steamer. In the interval many of their relations called, who all expressed great pleasure at seeing them home again at last. They told what a success Mary's Spanish portrait had been--in their own town, in Christiania, and then on its tour with other pictures through the country. The notices--but these she had of course read? No, she had read no newspapers, except occasionally one published at the place where they were living. "Do you read no home newspapers?" "Yes, when Father shows me them." Had not her father, had not Mrs. Dawes, told her anything? "No." Why, she was famous now throughout the whole of Norway. For this was the third portrait of her--or was it the fourth? Anyhow it was the finest. It had been reproduced in the illustrated newspapers; and also in an English art-magazine, the _Studio_. Did she not know that? "No." The young people here were very proud of her. They had put off their spring picnic and dance until she came home.

"You are to be feted!"

"I?"

"The picnic is to be at Marielyst. One steamer goes from here, and another comes from the places on the opposite side. Joergen Thiis planned it all in Paris."

"Joergen Thiis?"

"Yes. Did he not tell you about it?"

"No."

As soon as the callers left, Mary went to her father, who was unpacking some of the art treasures which were to remain in town.

"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 Joergen 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 Joergen 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 Joergen Thiis.

When they left for Krogskogen in the afternoon, a crowd of young people assembled 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, passing 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 shore 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 passage--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 Joergen Thiis.

It happened thus. Joergen 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 Roey?"

"She is," answered Joergen 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," Joergen Thiis declared as he left them.

Miss Roey 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 Roey 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.