He looked at her for a moment or two without saying a word.
"Will you take this dress, Elizabeth?" he said at last, almost harshly.
"No, that I won't, Salvé. Such things as you have been saying about me!"
"So you won't take it?" he said, slowly and dejectedly. "It is no use saying anything more, then, I suppose."
"No, Salvé, it is no use saying anything more."
The desolate expression of his face as he stood and looked at her, while he asked, "Am I to take it to sea with me, Elizabeth?" went to her heart, and the tears rushed into her eyes. She shook her head negatively, but with an almost despairing look, and disappeared into the house.
They could see in the sitting-room that she had been crying. But Carl Beck was a cold-blooded man, and merely lay at the window and looked out after his rival, to see if he had the parcel under his arm as he went out of the gate.
That night Elizabeth lay awake. She had cried in her sleep, and had dreamed that she had seen Salvé standing down at the quay so wretchedly clothed and so miserable, but too proud to ask assistance of any one, and that he had given her such a bitterly reproachful look; and she lay tossing about, unable to get the dream out of her head. Presently there came the noise of a riotous mob outside, and she got up and went to the window. The police were taking some one with them down the street. As they passed, she saw by the light of the street-lamp for a moment that it was Salvé. He was resisting with all his might, pale and infuriated, with his blue shirt all torn open in the front, and there was an expression in his face that—at any rate, she slept no more that night.
There had been a general mêlée, she heard next morning, among the sailors over in Mother Andersen's, on the other side of the harbour. It was said that knives had been used, and that Salvé Kristiansen had been the originator of the whole disturbance—without a shadow of protest, Carl Beck said; and proceeded then to put various interpretations of his own upon the affair. Elizabeth left the room, and for some days after was pale and worn-looking, and more than usually reserved, Carl thought, in her attitude towards himself.
Captain Beck had paid Salvé's fine and procured his release, and the afternoon before the Juno was to sail his father and younger brother came on board to say good-bye to him. There was something strange in his manner that struck them both; it was as if he thought he would never see them again. He offered his father his hundred-daler note, and when the latter would not take it, made him promise, at all events, to keep it for him. The father attributed his unusual manner to distress of mind and depression on account of his recent adventure with the police; but as he was going ashore he said, in rather a husky voice—