And he slipped his arm round her waist.
“But he ought to behave himself!”
“Behave himself? It was easy to talk!”
“The girl was coming with the wood!”
When it struck two, and sea and Skerries were flaming in the east, they were sitting at the open window.
“They were lovers still, weren’t they? And now he must go. But he would be back at ten, for breakfast, and after that they would go for a sail.”
He made some coffee on her spirit lamp, and they drank it while the sun was rising and the seagulls screamed. The gunboat was lying far out at sea and every now and then he saw the cutlasses of the watch glinting in the sunlight. It was hard to part, but the certainty of meeting again in a few hours’ time helped them to bear it. He kissed her for the last time, buckled on his sword and left her.
When he arrived at the bridge and shouted: “boat ahoy!” she hid herself behind the window curtains as if she were ashamed to be seen. He blew kisses to her until the sailors came with the gig. Then a last: “Sleep well and dream of me” and the gig put off. He watched her through his glasses, and for a long time he could distinguish a little figure with black hair. The sunbeams fell on her nightdress and bare throat and made her look like a mermaid.
The reveille went. The longdrawn bugle notes rolled out between the green islands over the shining water and returned from behind the pine woods. The whole crew assembled on deck and the Lord’s Prayer and “Jesus, at the day’s beginning” were read. The little church tower of Dalarö answered with a faint ringing of bells, for it was Sunday. Cutters came up in the morning breeze: flags were flying, shots resounded, light summer dresses gleamed on the bridge, the steamer, leaving a crimson track behind her, steamed up, the fishers hauled in their nets, and the sun shone on the blue, billowy water and the green islands.
At ten o’clock six pairs rowed the gig ashore from the gunboat. They were together again. And as they sat at breakfast in the large dining-room, the hotel guests watched and whispered: “Is she his wife?” He talked to her in an undertone like a lover, and she cast down her eyes and smiled; or hit his fingers with her dinner napkin.