A Hardy Norseman. Lyall Edna

And then almost directly I knew that at Munkeggen it had all been quite a mistake, and that I had never really loved you. We met again at one of the watering-places in September, but it was only settled the day before yesterday. I wish—oh, how I wish—that I had written to tell you!”

      She stood up impulsively and drew nearer to him.

      “Is there nothing I can do to make up for my mistake?” she said, lifting pathetic eyes to his.

      “Nothing.” he said bitterly.

      “Oh, don’t think badly of me for it,” she pleaded. “Don’t hate me.”

      “Hate you?” he exclaimed. “It will be the curse of my life that I love you—that you have made me love you.”

      He turned as though to go away.

      “Don’t go without saying good-by,” she exclaimed; and her eyes said more plainly than words, “I do not mind if you kiss me just once more.”

      He paused, ice one minute, fire the next, yet through it all aware that his conscience was urging him to go without delay.

      Blanche watched him tremulously; she drew yet nearer.

      “Could we not still be friends?” she said, with a pathetic little quiver in her voice.

      “No,” he cried vehemently, yet with a certain dignity in his manner; “no, we could not.”

      Then, before Blanche could recover enough from her sense of humiliation at this rebuff to speak, he bowed to her and left the room.

      She threw herself down on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions. “Oh, what must he think of me? what must he think of me?” she sobbed. “How I wish I had written to him at once and saved myself this dreadful scene! How could I have been so silly! so dreadfully silly! To be afraid of writing a few words in a letter! My poor Viking! he looked so grand as he turned away. I wish we could have been friends still; it used to be so pleasant in Norway; he was so unlike other people; he interested me. And now it is all over, and I shall never be able to meet him again. Oh, I have managed very badly. If I had not been so imprudent on Munkeggen he might have been my cavalier all his life, and I should have liked to show him over here to people. I should have liked to initiate him in everything.”

      The clock on the mantel-piece struck five. She started up and ran across to one of the mirrors, looking anxiously at her eyes. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?” she thought. “Algernon will be here directly, and I have made a perfect object of myself with crying.” Then, as the door-bell rang, she caught up a couvrette, sunk down on the sofa, and covered herself up picturesquely. “There is nothing for it but a bad headache,” she said to herself.

CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      On the stairs Frithiof was waylaid by Mr. Morgan; it was with a sort of surprise that he heard his own calm replies to the Englishman’s polite speeches, and regrets, and inquiries as to when he returned to Norway, for all the time his head was swimming, and it was astonishing that he could frame a correct English phrase. The thought occurred to him that Mr. Morgan would be glad enough to get rid of him and to put an end to so uncomfortable a visit; he could well imagine the shrug of relief with which the Englishman would return to his fireside, with its aggressively grand fenders and fire-irons, and would say to himself, “Well, poor devil, I am glad he is gone! A most provoking business from first to last.” For to the Morgans the affair would probably end as soon as the door had closed behind him, but for himself it would drag on and on indefinitely. He walked on mechanically past the great houses which, to his unaccustomed eyes, looked so palatial; every little trivial thing seemed to obtrude itself upon him; he noticed the wan, haggard-looking crossing sweeper, who tried his best to find something to sweep on that dry, still day when even autumn leaves seldom fell; he noticed the pretty spire of the church, and heard the clock strike five, reflecting that one brief half-hour had been enough to change his whole life—to bring him from the highest point of hope and eager anticipation to this lowest depth of wretchedness. The endless succession of great, monotonous houses grew intolerable to him; he crossed the road and turned into Kensington Gardens, aware, as the first wild excitement died down in his heart, of a cold, desolate blankness, the misery of which appalled him. What was the meaning of it all? How could it possibly be borne? Only by degrees did it dawn upon his overwrought brain that Blanche’s faithlessness had robbed him of much more than her love. It had left him stripped and wounded on the highway of life; it had taken from him all belief in woman; it had made forever impossible for him his old creed of the joy of mere existence; it had killed his youth. Was he now to get up, and crawl on, and drag through the rest of his life as best might be? Why, what was life worth to him now? He had been a fool ever to believe in it; it was as she herself had once told him, he had believed that it was all-sufficient merely because he had never known unhappiness—never known the agony that follows when, for—

      “The first time Nature says plain ‘No’

      To some ‘Yes’ in you, and walks over you

      In gorgeous sweeps of scorn.”

      His heart was so utterly dead that he could not even think of his home; neither his father nor Sigrid rose before him as he looked down that long, dreary vista of life that lay beyond. He could only see that Blanche was no longer his; that the Blanche he had loved and believed in had never really existed; that he had been utterly deceived, cheated, defrauded; and that something had been taken from him which could never return.

      “I will not live a day longer,” he said to himself; “not an hour longer.” And in the relief of having some attainable thing to desire ardently, were it only death and annihilation, he quickened his pace and felt a sort of renewal of energy and life within him, urging him on, holding before him the one aim which he thought was worth pursuing. He would end it all quickly, he would not linger on, weakly bemoaning his fate, or railing at life for having failed him and disappointed his hopes; he would just put an end to everything without more ado. As to arguing with himself about the right or wrong of the matter, such a notion never occurred to him, he just walked blindly on, certain that some opportunity would present itself, buoyed up by an unreasoning hope that death would bring him relief.

      By this time he had reached Hyde Park, and a vague memory came back to him; he remembered that, as he drove to Lancaster Gate, that afternoon, he had crossed a bridge. There was water over there. It should be that way. And he walked on more rapidly than before, still with an almost dazzling perception of all the trifling little details, the color of the dry, dusty road, the green of the turf, the dresses of those who passed by him, the sound of their voices, the strange incongruity of their perfectly unconcerned, contented faces. He would get away from all this—would wait till it was dusk, when he could steal down unnoticed to the water. Buoyed up by this last hope of relief, he walked along the north shore of the Serpentine, passed the Receiving House of the Royal Humane Society, with an unconcerned thought that his lifeless body would probably be taken there, passed the boat-house with a fervent hope that no one there would try a rescue, and at length, finding a seat under a tree close to the water’s edge, sat down to wait for the darkness. It need not be for long, for already the sun was setting, and over toward the west he could see that behind the glowing orange and russet of the autumn trees was a background of crimson sky. The pretty little wooded island and the round green boat-house on the shore stood out in strong relief; swans and ducks swam about contentedly; on the further bank was a dark fringe of trees; away to the left the three arches of a gray-stone bridge. In the evening light it made a fair picture, but the beauty of it seemed only to harden him, for it reminded him of past happiness; he turned with sore-hearted relief to the nearer view of the Serpentine gleaming coldly as its waters washed the shore, and to the dull monotony of the path in front of him with its heaps of brown leaves. A bird sat singing in the beech-tree above him; its song jarred on him just as much as the beauty of the sunset, it seemed to urge him to leave the place where he was not needed, to take himself out of a world which was meant for beauty and brightness and success, a world which had no sympathy for failure or misery.