But from that moment onward Oscar did nothing, good, bad, or indifferent. He was always running about like one out of breath, but he came at any hour in the morning and left at any time in the evening, and was always skipping off to see Thora. That little lady was entirely content, but the Factor was heard to say to Aunt Margret, "There was something in Magnus after all, Margret." And Aunt Margret was heard to answer, "Many a good sword is in a bad sheath, you know."
But one day Oscar came flying to the Factor in breathless haste with his mouth full of great news. The Member of Parliament for the town was dead, and the Radical party were already preparing to run a candidate--an out-and-out Socialist named Oddsson, an enemy of the old order in both politics and trade.
"Why shouldn't I go into Althing?" said Oscar. "I could protect the business against these rascally revolutionaries, and help to preserve the old principles."
"Let me talk to your father first," said the Factor.
The old friends agreed that the scheme was a good one. Not only was the man Oddsson a believer in Magnus's doctrine about the barter trade, but he was the champion of an agitation for establishing a new constitution in Iceland, which would abolish the Governor and set up a Minister responsible to Parliament alone. He must be kept out. In self-defense they must fight the common enemy! Oscar would be a good candidate, being young and bright and clever, and a personal favorite.
"But I cannot appear in the contest," said the Governor.
"Leave it to me," said the Factor, and he went back and told Oscar, who shouted with delight and shot off to tell Thora.
By this time Thora had spent a long month in radiant happiness. If she thought sometimes of Magnus's position, she remembered that Oscar had said he would set things right, and the delay counted for little, because she measured existence by days no longer, but by emotions, and she was conscious of one emotion only--love for Oscar, and therefore for everybody and everything in the world.
As the year was growing elderly and its withering winds made further excursions to the islands of the fiord impossible, they remained at home and romped like children or played the guitar and piano. At such times Thora was not without certain backward thoughts of Magnus, for the room was the same and nothing was different except the hour of the day, but there was always the difference of its being Oscar.
He taught her some Icelandic love songs, and she sang them in a thin sweet treble, which Oscar cheered tumultuously. It did not hurt her in the least that Oscar never took her singing seriously--he did not take Thora herself seriously. He called her "Baby Thora," and she christened him the "Bad Boy."