Frithiof was saved a reply, for just then they reached their destination, and rejoined the rest of the party, who were clustered together on the hill-side enjoying a most lovely view. Down below them, sheltered by a great craggy mountain on the further side, lay a little lonely lake, so weird-looking, so desolate, that it was hard to believe it to be within an easy walk of the town. Angry-looking clouds were beginning to gather in the sky, a purple gloom seemed to overspread the mountain and the lake, and something of its gravity seemed also to have fallen upon Frithiof. He had found the first imperfection in his ideal, yet it had only served to show him how great a power, how strange an influence she possessed over him. He knew now that, for the first time in his life, he was blindly, desperately in love.
“Why, it is beginning to rain,” said Mr. Morgan. “I almost think we had better be turning back, Herr Falck. It has been a most enjoyable little walk; but if we can reach the hotel before it settles in for a wet evening, why, all the better.”
“The rain is the great drawback to Bergen,” said Herr Falck. “At Christiania they have a saying that when you go to Bergen it rains three hundred and sixty-six days out of the year. But after all one becomes very much accustomed to it.”
On the return walk the conversation was more general, and though Frithiof walked beside Blanche he said very little. His mind was full of the new idea which had just dawned upon him, and he heard her merry talk with Sigrid and Swanhild like a man in a dream. Before long, much to his discomfort, he saw in front of them the two English tourists, and though his mind was all in a tumult with this new perception of his love for Blanche, yet the longing to make up for her ill-judged remark, the desire to prove that he did not share in her prejudice, was powerful too. He fancied it was chiefly to avoid them that the Englishman turned toward the bank just as they passed to gather a flower which grew high above his head.
“What can this be, Cecil?” he remarked.
“Allow me, sir,” said Frithiof, observing that it was just out of the stranger’s reach.
He was two or three inches taller, and, with an adroit spring, was able to bring down the flower in triumph. By this time the others were some little way in advance. He looked rather wistfully after Blanche, and fancied disapproval in her erect, trim little figure.
“This is the Linnæa,” he explained. “You will find a great deal of it about. It was the flower, you know, which Linnæus chose to name after himself. Some say he showed his modesty in choosing so common and insignificant a plant, but it always seems to me that he showed his good taste. It is a beautiful flower.”
Roy Boniface thanked him heartily for his help. “We were hoping to find the Linnæa,” he said, handing it to his sister, while he opened a specimen tin.
“What delicate little bells!” she exclaimed. “I quite agree with you that Linnæus showed his good taste.”