“Meanwhile I intend to try everything that is on the table. Isn’t that the properly unprejudiced spirit in which to dine in a strange country?”
“Oh, praiseworthy!” said Wareham. “Do you mind how they come, or will you follow hackneyed routine, and start with salmon?”
“Please. I don’t wish to go in too strongly for emancipation. I shall begin with salmon, and be much disappointed if you don’t provide me with reindeer collops—isn’t that the proper word?—and cloudberries and cream.”
“You are born to disappointment,” Wareham announced. “Cloudberries are not ripe much before September, and we are in July.” Millie looked at him, laughing and frowning. He admired her dimple.
“Spare my delusions,” she said. “I shall not listen to you. I know what to expect. Cloudberries and cream I shall feast upon, if not to-day, another day. Pirates will be in the fjords, at a safe distance. There will be islands, and if we look long enough, we shall see a man swimming, and flinging up his hands; while up by the saeters we shall come upon a little Lapp, carrying away a cheese as big as himself. That is my Norway,” Millie continued triumphantly, “not the miserably complicated country of Ibsen and Bjornson.” She lowered her voice to an “Ah!” and said no more, as the Martyns and Miss Dalrymple appeared.
Three empty seats opposite the Ravenhills had been reserved for the new-comers. Colonel Martyn gave a nod to Wareham, expressive of the sympathy of a fellow-sufferer, and dropped into the chair corresponding with his. Mrs Martyn came next, a large fair woman, with hardness in her face and brusqueness in her manner. Wareham passed them and looked at Miss Dalrymple, hostility in his heart, and admitted; as well as a curiosity which he would not have so readily acknowledged.
She faced the level light of many windows, a position against which Millie had rebelled, and she had just gone through a trying sea voyage; but her beauty defied what would have affected others. Her skin was warmly tinted, her hair a lovely brown, growing low on the temples, and lighter than is usual with brown beauties, some shades lighter than the beautiful eyes. Wareham, looking at her, pelted her with all the detracting epithets he could light upon; he called the poise of the small head on the slender throat arrogant, yet to most people it would have seemed as natural as the growth of a flower, and as perfect. As for the line of her lips, it was hard, hard, hard. Sitting down, she swept the table with a swift glance, half closing her eyes as she did so, to her judge a sign of sinful vanity, though really due to near-sightedness. This done, she turned and talked almost exclusively to her neighbour, a small old lady, shy, and a little prim, who had also crossed in the Eldorado. She was often, however, silent: once Wareham encountered her half-shut glance resting upon him. She showed no confusion at meeting his gaze, and he had to own, with a little mortification, that her look was as impersonal as that which she turned upon others of the unknown company.
Millie had grown silent, perhaps because her neighbour spoke less; and the link between the two sets was Mrs Ravenhill. She knew many people and could talk easily; at one moment in her conversation with Mrs Martyn, who had not yet stepped back into her usual assertive mood, she leaned across her daughter, and introduced Wareham. It was only an act of courtesy; after the interchange of a few words, his talk drifted again to Millie.
The motley meal ended, it broke up abruptly.
“Mother and I are going out,” said Millie, with careful avoidance of pressure.