Thelma
hours to catch the sound of her footstep; he would actually deck the
threshold with flowers in the morning that she might tread on them as
she passed by." The old bonds sighed and rubbed his hand across his eyes
with a gesture half of pain, half of impatience--"And now he is Thelma's
slave,--a regular servant to her. She can manage him best of us all,--he
is as docile as a lamb, and will do anything she tells him."
"I am not surprised at that," said the gallant Duprez; "there is reason
in such obedience!"
Thelma looked at him inquiringly, ignoring the implied compliment.
"You think so?" she said simply "I am glad! I always hope that he will
one day be well in mind,--and every little sign of reason in him is
pleasant to me."
Duprez was silent. It was evidently no use making even an attempt at
flattering this strange girl; surely she must be dense not to understand
compliments that most other women compel from the lips of men as their
right? He was confused--his Paris breeding was no use to him--in fact he
had been at a loss all day, and his conversation had, even to himself,
seemed particularly shallow and frothy. This Mademoiselle Gueldmar, as he
called her, was by no means stupid--she was not a mere moving statue of
lovely flesh and perfect color whose outward beauty was her only
recommendation,--she was, on the contrary, of a most superior
intelligence,--she had read much and thought more,--and the dignified
elegance of her manner, and bearing would have done honor to a queen.
After all, thought Duprez musingly, the social creeds of Paris _might_
be wrong--it was just possible! There might be women who were
womanly,--there might be beautiful girls who were neither vain nor
frivolous,--there might even be creatures of the feminine sex, besides
whom a trained Parisian coquette would seem nothing more than a painted
fiend of the neuter gender. These were new and startling considerations
to the feather-light mind of the Frenchman,--and unconsciously his fancy
began to busy itself with the old romantic histories of the ancient
French chivalry, when faith, and love, and loyalty, kept white the
lilies of France, and the stately courtesy and unflinching pride of the
_ancien regime_ made its name honored throughout the world. An odd
direction indeed for Pierre Duprez's reflection to wander in--he, who
never reflected on either past or future, but was content to fritter
away the present as pleasantly as might be--and the only reason to which
his unusually serious reverie could be attributed was the presence of
Thelma. She certainly had a strange influence on them all, though she
herself was not aware of it,--and not only Errington, but each one of
his companions had been deeply considering during the day, that
notwithstanding the unheroic tendency of modern living, life itself
might be turned to good and even noble account, if only an effort were
made in the right direction.
Such was the compelling effect of Thelma's stainless mind reflected in
her pure face, on the different dispositions of all the young men; and
she, perfectly unconscious of it, smiled at them, and conversed
gaily,--little knowing as she talked, in her own sweet and unaffected
way, that the most profound resolutions were being formed, and the most
noble and unselfish deeds, were being planned in the souls of her
listeners,--all forsooth! because one fair, innocent woman had, in the
clear, grave glances of her wondrous sea-blue eyes, suddenly made them
aware of their own utter unworthiness. Macfarlane, meditatively watching
the girl from under his pale eyelashes, thought of Mr. Dyceworthy's
matrimonial pretensions, with a humorous smile hovering on his thin
lips.
"Ma certes! the fellow has an unco' gude opeenion o' himself," he mused.
"He might as well offer his hand in marriage to the Queen while he's
aboot it,--he wad hae just as muckle chance o' acceptance."
Meanwhile, Errington, having learned all he wished to know concerning
Sigurd, was skillfully drawing out old Olaf Gueldmar, and getting him to
give his ideas on things in general, a task in which Lorimer joined.
"So you don't think we're making any progress nowadays?" inquired the
latter with an appearance of interest, and a lazy amusement in his blue
eyes as he put the question.
"Progress!" exclaimed Gueldmar. "Not a bit of it! It is all a going
backward; it may not seem apparent, but it is so. England, for instance,
is losing the great place she once held in the world's history,--and
these things always happen to all nations when money becomes more
precious to the souls of the people than honesty and honor. I take the
universal wide-spread greed of gain to be one of the worst signs of the
times,--the forewarning of some great upheaval and disaster, the effects
of which no human mind can calculate. I am told that America is destined
to be the dominating power of the future,--but I doubt it! Its politics
are too corrupt,--its people live too fast, and burn their candle at
both ends, which is unnatural and most unwholesome; moreover, it is
almost destitute of Art in its highest forms,--and is not its confessed
watchward 'the almighty Dollar?' And such a country as that expects to
arrogate to itself the absolute sway of the world? I tell you, _no_--ten
thousand times _no_! It is destitute of nearly everything that has made
nations great and all-powerful in historic annals,--and my belief is
that what, has been, will be again,--and that what has never been, will
never be."
"You mean by that, I suppose, that there is no possibility of doing
anything new,--no way of branching out in some, better and untried
direction?" asked Errington.
Olaf Gueldmar shook his head emphatically. "You can't do it," he said
decisively. "Everything in every way has been begun and completed and
then forgotten over and over in this world,--to be begun and completed
and forgotten again, and so on to the end of the chapter. No one nation
is better than another in this respect,--there is,--there can be nothing
new. Norway, for example, has had its day; whether it will ever have
another I know not,--at any rate, I shall not live to see it. And yet,
what a past!--" He broke off and his eyes grew meditative.
Lorimer looked at him. "You would have been a Viking, Mr. Gueldmar, had
you lived in the old days," he said with a smile.
"I should, indeed!" returned the old man, with an unconsciously haughty
gesture of his head; "and no better fate could have befallen me! To sail
the seas in hot pursuit of one's enemies, or in search of further
conquest,--to feel the very wind and sun beating up the blood in one's
veins,--to live the life of a _man_--a true man! . . . in all the pride
and worth of strength, and invincible vigor!--how much better than the
puling, feeble, sickly existence, led by the majority of men to-day! I
dwell apart from them as much as I can,--I steep my mind and body in the
joys of Nature, and the free fresh air,--but often I feel that the old
days of the heroes must have been best,--when Gorm the Bold and the
fierce Siegfried seized Paris, and stabled their horses in the chapel
where Charlemagne lay buried!"
Pierre Duprez looked up with a faint smile. "Ah, _pardon_! But that was
surely a very long time ago!"
"True!" said Gueldmar quietly. "And no doubt you will not believe the
story at this distance of years. But the day is coming when people will
look back on the little chronicle of your Empire,--your commune,--your
republic, all your little affairs, and will say, 'Surely these things
are myths; they occurred--if they occurred at all,--a very long time
ago!"
"Monsieur is a philosopher!" said Duprez, with a good-humored gesture;
"I would not presume to contradict him."
"You see, my lad," went on Gueldmar more gently, "there is much in our
ancient Norwegian history that is forgotten or ignored by students of
to-day. The travellers that come hither come to see the glories of our
glaciers and fjords,--but they think little or nothing of the vanished
tribe of heroes who once possessed the land. If you know your Greek
history, you must have heard of Pythias, who lived three hundred and
fifty-six years before Christ, and who was taken captive by a band of
Norseman and carried away to see 'the place where the sun slept in
winter.' Most probably he came to this very spot, the Altenfjord,--at
any rate the ancient Greeks had good words to say for the 'Outside
Northwinders,' as they called us Norwegians, for they reported us to be
'persons living in peace with their gods and themselves.' Again, one of
the oldest tribes in the world came among us in times past,--the
Phoenicians,--there are traces among us still of their customs and
manners. Yes! we have a great deal to look back upon with pride as well
as sorrow,--and much as I hear of the wonders of the New World, the
marvels and the go-ahead speed of American manners and civilization,--I
would rather be a Norseman than a Yankee." And he laughed.
"There's more dignity in the name, at any rate," said Lorimer. "But I
say, Mr. Gueldmar, you are 'up' in history much better than I am. The
annals of my country were grounded into my tender soul early in life,
but I have a very hazy recollection of them. I know Henry VIII. got rid
of his wives expeditiously and conveniently,--and I distinctly remember
that Queen Elizabeth wore the first pair of silk stockings, and danced a
kind of jig in them with the Earl of Leicester; these things interested
me at the time,--and they now seen firmly impressed on my memory to the
exclusion of everything else that might possibly be more important."
Old Gueldmar smiled, but Thelma laughed outright and her eyes danced
mirthfully.
"Ah, I do know you now!" she said, nodding her fair head at him wisely.
"You are not anything that is to be believed! So I shall well understand
you,--that is, you are a very great scholar,--but that it pleases you to
pretend you are a dunce!"
Lorimer's face brightened into a very gentle and winning softness as he
looked at her.
"I assure you, Miss Gueldmar, I am not pretending in the least. I'm no
scholar. Errington is, if you like! If it hadn't been for him, I should
never have learned anything at Oxford at all. He used to leap over a
difficulty while I was looking at it. Phil, don't interrupt me,--you
know you did! I tell you he's up to everything: Greek, Latin, and all
the rest of it,--and, what's more, he writes well,--I believe,--though
he'll never forgive me for mentioning it,--that he has even published
some poems."
"Be quiet, George!" exclaimed Errington, with a vexed laugh. "You are
boring Miss Gueldmar to death!"
"What is _boring_?" asked Thelma gently, and then turning her eyes full
on the young Baronet, she added, "I like to hear that you will pass your
days sometimes without shooting the birds and killing the fish; it can
hurt nobody for you to write." And she smiled that dreamy pensive smile,
of hers that was so infinitely bewitching. "You must show me all your
sweet poems!"
Errington colored hotly. "They are all nonsense, Miss Gueldmar," he said
quickly. "There's nothing 'sweet' about them, I tell you frankly! All
rubbish, every line of them!"
"Then you should not write them," said Thelma quietly. "It is only a
pity and a disappointment."
"I wish every one were of your opinion," laughed Lorimer, "it would
spare us a lot of indifferent verse."
"Ah! you have the chief Skald of all the world in your land!" cried
Gueldmar, bringing his fist down with a jovial thump on the table. "He
can teach you all that you need to know."
"_Skald_?" queried Lorimer dubiously. "Oh, you mean bard. I suppose you
allude to Shakespeare?"
"I do," said the old _bonde_ enthusiastically, "he is the only glory of