“Hardly. It might have been so in time.”
“It surprised me. She is much more modern, much more subtile. Is she greatly grieved?”
“I cannot tell you. Probably I shall know to-night.”
He rose. The young doctor walked with him as far as the head of the harbour. Lights twinkled here and there, people strolled about, and Wareham was perforce reminded of that evening in Stavanger, of Millie’s pleasure, of what now seemed like the beginning of all things; for what is the day when a man first sees the woman he loves, but, to him, the day of creation?
He walked slowly. No need to hurry back. No one was waiting, no night-watch lay before him. Dr Scott had hurriedly packed, and got off by the Hull steamer, taking the English nurse with him. Wareham felt that he must see the others, and hear from them their plans; Colonel Martyn was the only one he had spoken with, and he had said they would at any rate make no movement that day. As Wareham came near the inn, a party of gentlemen turned out and came towards them, and an instinct of avoidance thrust him into the door of a shop. There he waited until they had passed; what gratitude it was necessary to express, he had a preference for enclosing in a letter. Laughter broke out as they came near. Sir Walter spoke in a drawl—
“Clear deck for Mil at last. Worth waiting for, eh, Burnby?”
“You’re an unfeeling dog,” muttered Lord Milborough.
Wareham, within, saw that he alone was not smiling.
“Wants condolences—” was all that reached Wareham’s ears, with a retreating laugh. He felt angry that even so much had been forced upon him. There was nothing astonishing in the words. Reason might have told him that the Camilla would not have furled her white wings in Bergen harbour unless some pretty strong attraction had influenced her owner. And further, that it was unconscionable to expect regret for Hugh from men to whom he was only a stranger and a rival. But many people, perhaps unconsciously, embody abstract qualities when they present them to their mind, and Wareham, the most reasonable of men, turned reason into an old woman with a shrewish face and an uplifted finger. There were times when he hated her.
He looked into the salon at once, and would have escaped when he beheld only Mrs Martyn, but that young lady had her eye on the door.