Here was his heart once more racing smoothly, until judgment caught the reins again, and tugged at the runaway steed. What boy’s work was this! A woman but a few weeks ago betrothed to his friend, and still beloved by him—crazily it might be, but with all his heart—a woman of whom he knew next to nothing, and that little, up to now, not in her favour—and here, at a word, a look, he was at her feet! Shameful! Yet—worst shame of all—not to be parted with at any price. Already the world without Anne’s figure in the foreground looked cold and unendurable. His eyes tried to pierce the whirl of dust ahead, and to distinguish her amid its folds; he fancied he could do so, and straightway his thoughts were occupied with nothing but foolish longing to know what her eyes were saying at this moment. The confidence she had given surely pointed to a touch of sympathy, a budding liking? Happy, happy he! In another hour or two they might be again together, and he would show better than he yet had done, how much he prized her frankness. The next moment these thoughts turned upon him with scourges. Honour stood by, and scornfully directed the flagellation, and he felt himself a miserable traitor. Here was friendship! Here was a creditable sequel to his offices for Hugh! So his mind wandered backwards and forwards.
Chaos lasted for a while, and it is not impossible that the tumult was so new that he rashly suffered it, believing in his own powers of self-government, and aware of a whirl, as of hot-headed youth, which he had thought the years had left behind. The day changed, brooding clouds gathered round the mountains, which closed in, rank after rank; nearer hills, heavily purple, swept up from the gloom of the valley. The road slowly mounted, the dust subsided, and the crawling carrioles in front looked as if an effort might overtake them. But Wareham checked the impulse, and his skydsgut’s attempted spurt. He would not see Anne until he had resolved on a line of action. A resolution, carefully thought out, would serve as a guard against the rasher promptings of his heart, and between this and Stalheim he had to come to terms with this resolution. One was already there—not to give her up if he could gain her. Behind this his heart entrenched itself, grumbling.
Yet, in spite of such a reservation, carrying a good deal with it, Wareham hugged the delusion that the other was the more important. Conscience had much to say as to what he should write to Hugh, how wrap up the communication which was so abominably angular and assertive, that, say what he would, it inevitably presented itself in a repulsive form. Conscience harped loudly upon truth, yet was anxious to give truth what should have been unnecessary adorning. Finally he resolved to write to Hugh that night, and to tell him—? to tell him that he had met Miss Dalrymple. This decided, he was forced to admit that so much Hugh knew already. There must be a more expansive confession; he had to add—admired, liked her. And this written, in thought, appeared so significant to Wareham, that he imagined himself closing the letter here, and drew a breath of relief. But conscience, refusing compromise, cried out for something explicit, and here came the difficulty. All the sentences he revolved looked either inadequate or shameful. “Do you give her up?” Free she undoubtedly was, having herself asserted her freedom, but free to Hugh Forbes’ chief friend?
Yet something he must write, and until it was written and answered, keep his feelings out of reach of betrayal. Here was a resolution which he grasped, for it belonged to the honourable instincts of a fine nature, too deeply rooted to suffer in the general upheaval. He added a rider, necessary if unpalatable. He would not avoid Anne to the extent of provoking her own or other remark, but he must avoid—well, such a walk à deux as they had taken that day, for instance.
The road grew steeper, and he jumped out of his carriole. Stalheim was perched above, a hotel, two or three scattered cottages, and a waterfall. He climbed through gathering clouds, and when he reached the door, was met by English tourists of the most noisy and offensive type. All his own people had vanished, and he saw no more of them until supper, which was eaten to the accompaniment of a band. Mrs Ravenhill confided to him that she hated the place, in spite of the magnificence of the scenery.
“And Millie and I have determined to go to Gudvangen to-morrow, and wait for the Monday steamer. I cannot stay here to see my own country-people making themselves so obnoxious—” She hastened to add with scrupulous care, “You don’t expect me, I hope, to repeat that you are not in the least tied to us, and must not be influenced by anything we may do.”
“Does that sentence mean that I am forbidden to accompany you?”
“Forbidden? Oh, no; but the others stay on, and this is one of the special places in Norway.”
“I detest special places.”
She warned further.