Cecil thought for a moment.
“Sigrid would have liked it, but I know she is too busy just now,” she remarked.
“And, oh, my dear, far better go alone than take Miss Falck!” said Mrs. Horner. “I shall never forget what I endured when I took her with me to hear Corney Grain; she laughed aloud, my dear; laughed till she positively cried, and even went so far as to clap her hands. It makes me hot to think of it even.”
Mrs. Horner belonged to that rather numerous section of English people who think that it is a sign of good breeding to show no emotion. She had at one time been rather taken by Sigrid’s charming manner, but the Norwegian girl was far too simple and unaffected, far too spontaneous, to remain long in Mrs. Horner’s good books; she had no idea of enjoying things in a placid, conventional, semi-bored way, and her clear, ringing laugh was in itself an offense. Mrs. Horner herself never gave more than a polite smile, or at times, when her powers of restraint were too much taxed, a sort of uncomfortable gurgle in her throat, with compressed lips, which gallantly tried to strangle her unseemly mirth.
“I always enjoy going anywhere with Sigrid,” said Cecil, who, gentle as she was, would never consent to be over-ridden by Mrs. Horner. “It seems to me that her wonderful faculty for enjoying everything is very much to be envied. However, there is no chance of her going to-night; I will call and see whether one of the Greenwoods is disengaged.”
So with hasty farewells she went off, laughing to herself as the cab rattled along to think of Mrs. Horner’s discomfort and Sigrid’s intense appreciation of Corney Grain. Fate, however, seemed to be against her; her friends, the Greenwoods, were out for the evening, and there was nothing left for it but to drive home again, or else to go in alone and trust to finding Roy afterward. To sacrifice her chance of hearing the Elijah with Albani as soprano merely to satisfy Mrs. Grundy was too much for Cecil. She decided to go alone, and, writing a few words on a card asking Roy to come to her at the end of the oratorio, she sent it to the artistes’ room by one of the attendants, and settled herself down to enjoy the music, secretly rather glad to have an empty chair instead of Mrs. Horner beside her.
All at once the color rushed to her cheeks, for, looking up, she saw Frithiof crossing the platform; she watched him place the score on the conductor’s desk, and turn to answer the question of some one in the orchestra, then disappear again within the swing-doors leading to the back regions. She wondered much what he was thinking of as he went through his prosaic duties so rapidly, wondered if his mind was away in Norway all the time—whether autumn had brought to him, as she knew it generally did, the strong craving for his old life of adventure—the longing to handle a gun once more; or whether, perhaps, his trouble had overshadowed even that, and whether he was thinking instead of that baffling mystery which had caused them all so much pain. And all through the oratorio she seemed to be hearing everything with his ears; wondering how the choruses would strike him, or hoping that he was in a good place for hearing Albani’s exquisite rendering of “Hear ye, Israel.” She wondered a little that Roy did not come to her, or, at any rate, send her some message, and at the end of the last chorus began to feel a little anxious and uncomfortable. At last, to her great relief, she saw Frithiof coming toward her.
“Your brother has never come,” he said, in reply to her greeting. “I suppose this fog must have hindered him, for he told me he should be here; and I have been expecting him every moment.”
“Is the fog so bad as all that?” said Cecil, rather anxiously.
“It was very bad when I came,” said Frithiof. “However, by good luck, I managed to grope my way to Portland Road, and came down by the Metropolitan. Will you let me see you home?”