And then Oscar would stammer a little and say, "Well, if you are willing to be guided by Helga's judgment, and Helga herself will----"
"Certainly I am, so be off to my bedroom and settle everything."
Whereupon Oscar would cry, "No, no, we're right enough here," and then Helga and he--the one trembling lest a word should betray him, the other going through the bitterness of looking at happiness through another's eyes--would discuss routes and railway journeys to the click of scissors and the buzz of the sewing machine.
"We'll go up by the Mont Cenis, eh?" "No, by the St. Gothard." "We'll come back by San Remo and Nice." "And Monte Carlo!" "Yes, of course--Monte Carlo."
"My gracious, it might be Helga who was going on her honeymoon," Aunt Margret would say.
"Mightn't it?" Thora would answer, and then she would laugh like a child.
In the Holy Land of her innocent heart she had only one thought about her sister--that she had done her the wrong of suspecting her. Helga might know nothing about that, but she knew, and she could never be quite satisfied until she had made amends. Time and again she thought of a way to do this, and at length an artful scheme occurred to her. It was a daring design, and asking herself when she could bring it to pass she concluded that it must be on her wedding-day, because she would be the queen of her own little kingdom then and nobody could deny her anything. Meantime it was to be her secret, and Helga was to hear nothing about lit, and even Oscar himself was not to know.
There was only one other streak of alloy in Thora's happiness, and that was her memory of Magnus. The brave heart did not break and Magnus's despair might be dumb, but the thought of his suffering was the tang of iron in the sweet wine of Thora's life. To complete her happiness everybody had to share it, so when Oscar came one day she took him into the hall and said:
"Oscar, who is to be best man?" And Oscar stammered:
"Well, really, to tell you the truth, I hadn't--that is to say----"