Mrs Ravenhill was a little offended.
“What has Miss Dalrymple to do with it? You told me he disliked her.”
The girl did not answer the question; she began to talk to a pony standing in a cart by the roadside. Then came a shop, and doubt as to the purchase of an ermine purse; after that, hurry for the table-d’hôte. An English yacht lay in the fjord; her people had come on shore, and were lunching at the Hardanger, next to the Martyns. Millie, who had for her neighbour a clever young Siamese prince who was travelling with a Danish tutor, hoped that Miss Dalrymple might select them for her afternoon companions. But, luncheon over, she made straight for Millie.
“You and I will escape from all these people,” she said, with a smile which would have sent young Grey to her feet. Millie was unaffected.
“It is very hot,” she said.
“Here, very. But I have a cool plan in my head. Please come.”
It would have been ungracious to refuse, and pre-engagements were not to be pleaded in Odde. In an hours time the two girls were sitting in one of the light boats, pointed at each end, and being rowed across the fjord to the opposite side, where a slender waterfall is seen from Odde, dancing down through purple and green woods. The fjord was still as glass, each line of the English yacht repeated itself in the opal waters, two children with scarlet caps hung fishing over the side of the vessel. Anne lay lazily back, looking at everything through half-closed lids. Everything included Millie.
Millie asked at last where they were going.
“To a farm. Does that please you?”
She did not answer the question.