An hour afterwards they were on the upper deck of the little steamer. Grey mists had gathered in their scouts, and swept up, chilling the air and battling with the sunshine. Now one, now the other gained the day. Miss Dalrymple walked about with Colonel Martyn. Wareham believed she shared his own disinclination to meet, and, under the circumstances, disinclination was more creditable than indifference. His hard thoughts of her softened slightly—very slightly. Mutual avoidance would prevent difficulties which might otherwise prove awkward in the coming days. Meanwhile, as yet nothing had been said or done which foreboded trouble.
It pleased Millie to treat Wareham as if he were responsible for anything lacking in the beauty of the country, and as the wide entrance to the Sand fjord is uninteresting, and a cold wind, nipping in from a bleak sea, chilled the landscape, he became the butt of many mock reproaches. Wrapped in a fur cloak, and barricaded behind an umbrella, she vowed there was nothing to see. Perhaps there was not much. But Wareham found a never-failing attraction in the small scattered villages at which the steamer stopped. A dozen or more white houses, a little stone pier, against which, under the crystal-clear water, seaweed of a wonderful green clung and floated, and a stir of human interest among the people who came down to the water’s edge to meet the steamer. At one of these landing-places the crowd was more than usual—a pink, green, and blue crowd—and there was concentrating of eyes upon one young girl, to whom the vessel had brought a bouquet—a white bridal bouquet. The pride with which she received it, the eagerness with which she read the note accompanying it, and allowed the children to admire and smell it, the interest of the other gazing girls, and the dignified air she assumed after the first few moments, made up an idyll which Wareham watched, smiling. He was sorry when the steamer backed away from the busy pier, and left the girl with her hopes, her triumphs, and her awe-smitten companions.
Going back to tell the idle Millie that she had missed something, his eye fell upon a tall slight figure in a long cloak, standing near the spot where he had stood, and talking to a shorter man with a grey beard. It was Miss Dalrymple, and she had apparently been occupied in the same way as himself. Her face was turned towards him, but she made no sign of recognition.
“Well?” demanded Millie gaily.
“Well, you would have found it interesting.”
“How do you know?”
“Listen to what were the accessories. A note and a nosegay.”
“Go on. No more?”
“A young woman. Beyond question, a wedding near at hand, and I have remarked that all women are interested in weddings.”
“Distantly viewed they are tolerable; but looked at closely, one’s pity becomes painful. And I am too cold to cry comfortably.”