Chapter Eight.
Eden.
The steamer was to start from Gudvangen at two. Wareham already felt as if he had offered up so much to duty that he might expect reward. To have left Miss Dalrymple to the mercy of possibilities in the shape of other men, for two long days, was in itself an assurance that he could trust himself; and if that were so, the reasons for avoiding her became ludicrously small, almost, indeed, offensive. He went to fish, but the point he chose commanded the road through the Naerodal, and when he saw the carriages broadening from specks into shape, and at last could distinguish clearly, he was not very long in making his way after them to Hansen’s.
Mrs Martyn and Anne were standing in the porch talking to old Hansen, as well as limited vocabularies would allow. Wareham was welcome as an interpreter to three of the party; he hoped that Anne’s smile meant more.
“You see, we are here,” she said; “we have torn ourselves from Stalheim, wicked Stalheim!”
“Why wicked?”
“By contrast only. Here you look so pastoral, so idyllic, that our little crowds, and bands, and bad dinners, take quite an iniquitous air.”
“We had a chaplain,” put in Mrs Martyn. “To point out how bad we were!”