“It will be a great work done,” she said thoughtfully. “But when it is all finished, I wonder whether you will not feel a little like the men who work all their lives to make a certain amount and then retire, and can’t think what to do with themselves?”
“I hope not,” said Frithiof; “but I own that there is a chance of it. You see, the actual work in itself is hateful to me. Never, I should think, was there any one who so loathed indoor work of all kinds, specially desk work. Yet I have learned to take real interest in the business, and that will remain and still be my duty when the debts are cleared off. It is a shocking confession, but I own that when Herr Sivertsen’s work is no longer a necessity it will be an immense relief to me, and I doubt if I shall ever open that sort of book again.”
“It must be terrible drudgery,” said Cecil, “since you can’t really like it.”
“Herr Sivertsen has given me up as a hopeless case; he has long ago ceased to talk about Culture with a capital C to it; he no longer expects me to take any interest in the question whether earth-worms do or do not show any sensitiveness to sound when placed on a grand piano. I told him that the bare idea is enough to make any one in the trade shudder.”
Cecil laughed merrily. It was by no means the first time that he had told her of his hopeless lack of all literary and scientific tastes, and she admired him all the more for it, because he kept so perseveringly to the work, and disregarded his personal tastes so manfully. They had, moreover, many points in common, for there was a vein of poetry in his nature as well as in hers; like most Norwegians, he was musical, and his love of sport and of outdoor life had not robbed him of the gentler tastes—love of scenery and love of home.
“See!” she exclaimed, “there is the first narcissus. How early it is! I must take it to mother, for she is so fond of them.”
He stooped to gather the flower for her, and as she took it from him, he just glanced at her for a moment; she was looking very pretty that evening, her gray eyes were unusually bright, there was a soft glow of color in her fair face, an air of glad contentment seemed to hover about her. He little guessed that it was happiness in his success which was the cause of all this.
Even as he watched her, however, her color faded, her lips began to quiver, she seemed to be on the point of fainting.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked, alarmed by the sudden change in her face. “Are you ill, Cecil?”
She did not reply, but let him help her to the nearest garden seat.