Helga went up also to take off her hat, and the Governor and the Factor carried Oscar into the drawing-room, where the Bishop, the Sheriff and the Rector joined them. Maria brought in coffee and chocolate, and the old men charged their pipes and plied Oscar with questions. The Governor asked about English politics, the Factor about custom-house duties, the Bishop about the Vatican, and the Rector about the excavations in the Roman Forum.
Oscar answered all of them with a dash and emphasis that had the look of knowledge and the effect of wit, and then glancing off the heavy ground of fact he went tobogganing down the slippery slopes of fiction, with amusing tales of their travels and of the ridiculous things that had and had not happened to them.
All his stories told, every time he pulled the trigger his pistol fired, and the old men laughed until they cried. "What a boy he is!" "He plays with every finger." His high spirits affected them like sunshine after dark days, like a breeze after a calm at sea, like the swing of a boat after the first dip of the oar. He was the same reckless, irresponsible, lovable prodigal as before, and it was not until afterward that anybody remembered there had been a hollow ring in his hilarity, a false note in his joy.
Helga came down to the drawing-room and the men received her with a shout.
"How plump she has grown!" said the Governor.
"She has certainly filled out on the trip," said the Factor.
"Hasn't she?" said Oscar. "Just what she wanted--all she wanted."
"Nonsense! Let us talk of something serious," said Helga.
Thora came next, with Anna and Aunt Margret buzzing and humming about her like bees. She had changed to her old Iceland dress--just for remembrance--and now that she could be seen without her veil she was undoubtedly thinner, and she had a pinched look about the nostrils and a feverish spot in the middle of her cheeks. But her face was shining with timid smiles and she was overflowing with gratitude.
"Anna has given us such beautiful rooms, Oscar, the big one overlooking the road and the long one behind it, though I don't know what in the world we are going to do with two."