He spoke quietly, and rose from his seat on the moss as he finished his words, and his face had an expression that was both noble and resolute.
Sigurd still gazed upon him. "And you,—you do not love Thelma?" he murmured.
Lorimer started, but controlled himself instantly. His frank English eyes met the feverishly brilliant ones fixed so appealingly upon him.
"Certainly not!" he said calmly, with a serene smile. "What makes you think of such a thing? Quite wrong, Sigurd,—the spirits have made a mistake again! Come along,—let us join the others."
But Sigurd would not accompany him. He sprang away like a frightened animal, in haste, and abruptly plunging into the depths of a wood that bordered on Olaf Güldmar's grounds, was soon lost to sight. Lorimer looked after him in a little perplexity.
"I wonder if he ever gets dangerous?" he thought. "A fellow with such queer notions might do some serious harm without meaning it. I'll keep an eye on him!"
And once or twice during that same evening, he felt inclined to speak to Errington on the subject, but no suitable opportunity presented itself—and after a while, with his habitual indolence, he partly forgot the circumstance.
On the following Sunday afternoon Thelma sat alone under the wide blossom-covered porch, reading. Her father and Sigurd,—accompanied by Errington and his friends,—had all gone for a mountain ramble, promising to return for supper, a substantial meal which Britta was already busy preparing. The afternoon was very warm,—one of those long, lazy stretches of heat and brilliancy in which Nature seems to have lain down to rest like a child tired of play, sleeping in the sunshine with drooping flowers in her hands. The very ripple of the stream seemed hushed, and Thelma, though her eyes were bent seriously on the book she held, sighed once or twice heavily as though she were tired. There was a change in the girl,—an undefinable something seemed to have passed over her and toned down the redundant brightness of her beauty. She was paler,—and there were darker shadows than usual under the splendor of her eyes. Her very attitude, as she leaned her head against the dark, fantastic carving of the porch, had a touch of listlessness and indifference in it; her sweetly arched lips drooped with a plaintive little line at the corners, and her whole air was indicative of fatigue, mingled with sadness. She looked up now and then from the printed page, and her gaze wandered over the stretch of the scented, flower-filled garden, to the little silvery glimmer of the Fjord from whence arose, like delicate black streaks against the sky, the slender masts of the Eulalie,—and then she would resume her reading with a slight movement of impatience.
The volume she held was Victor Hugo's "Orientales," and though her sensitive imagination delighted in poetry as much as in sunshine, she found it for once hard to rivet her attention as closely as she wished to do, on the exquisite wealth of language, and glow of color, that distinguishes the writings of the Shakespeare of France. Within the house Britta was singing cheerily at her work, and the sound of her song alone disturbed the silence. Two or three pale-blue butterflies danced drowsily in and out a cluster of honeysuckle that trailed downwards, nearly touching Thelma's shoulder, and a diminutive black kitten, with a pink ribbon round its neck, sat gravely on the garden path, washing its face with its tiny velvety paws, in that deliberate and precise fashion, common to the spoiled and petted members of its class. Everything was still and peaceful as became a Sunday afternoon,—so that when the sound of a heavy advancing footstep disturbed the intense calm, the girl was almost nervously startled, and rose from her seat with so much precipitation, that the butterflies, who had possibly been considering whether her hair might not be some new sort of sunflower, took fright and flew far upwards, and the demure kitten scared out of its absurd self-consciousness, scrambled hastily up the nearest little tree. The intruder on the quietude of Güldmar's domain was the Rev. Mr. Dyceworthy,—and as Thelma, standing erect in the porch, beheld him coming, her face grew stern and resolute, and her eyes flashed disdainfully.
Ignoring the repellant, almost defiant dignity of the girl's attitude, Mr. Dyceworthy advanced, rather out of breath and somewhat heated,—and smiling benevolently, nodded his head by way of greeting, without removing his hat.