“Have you persuaded him?” he inquired.
“Mr Wareham?” said Anne carelessly. “I should not venture to attempt it.”
“Time’s nearly up,” Hugh announced. “In a quarter of an hour we shall be at Vadheim, and Colonel Martyn wants to know if you have seen the brown rug?”
“Tell him it is here,” she said, with a little eagerness; and Hugh was turning away when Wareham stopped him.
“Stay,” he said. “I will go.”
He did not return. Lights shone out ahead of them, and there was a stir in the vessel, and an uprising of sleepers, for this is the point where those bound for Northern Norway leave the Sogne. The professor’s voice was heard, acutely insistent. Colonel Martyn came to look for Anne and his rug. The lights resolved themselves into illuminated windows of a square inn, and, with no movement about it, this midnight illumination had an almost spectral effect.
A procession of good-byes followed.
“Good-bye, Mr Wareham,” said Mrs Martyn, with a laugh. “High ideals may be very fine things, but they don’t pay, and you had better have stayed.”
“Lucky man, with a tender chop in sight!” muttered her husband.
As Anne passed out she turned a smiling face towards Wareham, but if he had feared or hoped for a farewell word, he was disappointed. She said no more than “Good-night,” and put a warm hand into his. He had prepared himself for words, but silence knocked aside his defences.