Part 10 (1/2)
Every face brightened. Mrs. Dawes exclaimed: ”Jorgen Thiis has just been asking when we intend to go; he wants to travel with us.”
Mary did not turn towards Jorgen 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 Jorgen 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. Jorgen Thiis went up to her and said:
”I hear that you have made Frans Roy's acquaintance, Miss Krog?”
Her father and Mrs. Dawes were listening attentively. This showed that Jorgen 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?”
Jorgen 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 Roy 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 Jorgen 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 Jorgen as a matter of course returned to the subject. It could not be allowed to drop thus. All Frans Roy'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. Jorgen gave instances, but the others did not understand them. So he went on to tell anecdotes of Frans Roy 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 Jorgen said that he had only heard the stories from others; Frans Roy 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.”
Jorgen 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 Roy was concerned. So did Jorgen Thiis.
At half-past eight they went upstairs again. Mary at once retired to her room, pleading fatigue. She lay and listened to Jorgen 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.