“And I’ll take care of you, too,” he said benevolently. “I’ll take you all the way to Norway, and row you in a boat, and shoot the bears.”
Frithiof smiled.
“The trouble generally is to find bears to shoot.”
“Yes, but Cecil did see where a bear had made its bed up on Munkeggen, didn’t you, Cecil?”
“Yes, yes, and you shall go with me some day,” she said, hurrying the little fellow off because she thought the allusion to Munkeggen would perhaps hurt Frithiof.
Roy was on the point of taking up the thread of conversation again about Norway, but she promptly intervened.
“I don’t know how we shall cure Lance of dancing with rage like that; we have the same scene every night.”
“You went the right way to work just now,” said Mr. Boniface. “You made him understand why his own wishes must be thwarted; and you see he was quite willing to believe what you said. You had a living proof of what you were arguing—he did what he had once disliked because he saw that it was the road to something higher, and better, and more really desirable than his play down here. In time he will have a sort of respectful liking for the road which once he hated.”
“The only drawback is,” said Frithiof, rather bitterly, “that he may follow the road, and it may not lead him to what he expects; he may go to bed like an angel, and yet, in spite of that, lose his health, or grow up without a chance of taking you to Norway or shooting bears.”
“Well, what then?” said Cecil quietly. “It will have led him on in the right direction, and if he is disappointed of just those particular things, why, he must look further and higher.”