“Do you know many people in London?” he asked, willing to shift his responsibility if possible.
“No,” said Frithiof, “I do not know a soul.”
He relapsed into silence. Roy’s thoughts went back to his first day at Bergen; he seemed to live it all through once more; he remembered how Frithiof Falck had got the Linnæa for them, how he had taken them for shelter to his father’s house; the simplicity and the happiness of the scene came back to him vividly, and he glanced at his companion as though to verify his past impressions. The light from a street lamp fell on Frithiof at that moment, and Roy started; the Norwegian had perhaps forgotten that he was not alone, at any rate he wore an expression which had not hitherto been visible. There was something about his pale, set face which alarmed Roy, and scattered to the winds all his selfishness and awkward shyness.
“Then you will of course dine with me,” he said, “since you have no other engagement.”
And Frithiof, still wishing to be alone, and yet still dreading it, thanked him and accepted the invitation.
The ice once broken, they got on rather better, and as they dined together Roy carefully abstained from talking of the days at Balholm, but asked after Sigrid and Swanhild and Herr Falck, talked of the winter in Norway, of skating, of Norwegian politics, of everything he could think of which could divert his friend’s mind from the Morgans.
“What next,” he said, as they found themselves once more in the street. “Since you go back soon we ought to make the most of the time. Shall we come to the Savoy? You must certainly hear a Gilbert and Sullivan opera before you leave.”
“I am not in the mood for it to-night,” said Frithiof. “And it has just struck me that possibly my father may telegraph instructions to me—he would have got Morgan’s telegram this morning. I will go back to the Arundel and see.”
This idea seemed to rouse him. He became much more like himself, and as they walked down the Strand the conversation dragged much less. For the first time he spoke of the work that awaited him on his return to Bergen, and Roy began to think that his scheme for diverting him from his troubles had been on the whole a success.
“We must arrange what day you will come down to us at Brixton,” he said, as they turned down Arundel Street. “Would to-morrow suit you?”