Thelma
gossip--it is generally scandalous, and seldom true. Besides, I took
your face on trust, as you took mine."
"Then," declared Gueldmar, with a smile, "I have nothing more to
say,--except"--and he stretched out both hands--"may the great gods
prosper your wooing! You offer a fairer fate to Thelma than I had
dreamed of for her--but I know not what the child herself may say--"
Philip interrupted him. His eyes flashed, and he smiled.
"She loves me!" he said simply. Gueldmar looked at him, laughed a little,
and sighed.
"She loves thee?" he said, relapsing into the _thee_ and _thou_ he was
wont to use with his daughter. "Thou hast lost no time, my lad? When
didst thou find that out?"
"To-day!" returned Philip, with that same triumphant smile playing about
his lips. "She told me so--yet even now I cannot believe it!"
"Ah, well, thou mayest believe it truly," said Gueldmar, "for Thelma says
nothing that she does not mean! The child has never stooped to even the
smallest falsehood."
Errington seemed lost in a happy dream. Suddenly he roused himself and
took Gueldmar by the arm.
"Come," he said, "let us go to her! She will wonder why we are so long
absent. See! the storm has cleared--the sun is shining. It is
understood? You will give her to me?"
"Foolish lad!" said Gueldmar gently. "What have I to do with it? She has
given herself to thee! Love has overwhelmed both of your hearts, and
before the strong sweep of such an ocean what can an old man's life
avail? Nothing--less than nothing! Besides, I _should_ be happy--if I
have regrets,--if I feel the tooth of sorrow biting at my heart--'tis
naught but selfishness. 'Tis my own dread of parting with her"--his
voice trembled, and his fine face quivered with suppressed emotion.
Errington pressed his arm. "Our house shall be yours, sir!" he said
eagerly. "Why not leave this place and come with us?"
Gueldmar shook his head. "Leave Norway!" he said--"leave the land of my
fathers--turn my back on these mountains and fjords and glaziers? Never!
No, no, my lad, you're kind-hearted and generous as becomes you, and I
thank you from my heart. But 'twould be impossible! I should be like a
caged eagle, breaking my wings against the bars of English
conventionalities. Besides, young birds must make their nest without
interference from the old ones."
He stepped out on deck as Errington opened the little cabin door, and
his features kindled with enthusiasm as he looked on the stretch of dark
mountain scenery around him, illumined by the brilliant beams of the sun
that shone out now in full splendor, as though in glorious defiance of
the retreating storm, which had gradually rolled away in clouds that
were tumbling one over the other at the extreme edge of the northern
horizon, like vanquished armies taking to hasty flight.
"Could I stand the orderly tameness of your green England, think you,
after this?" he exclaimed, with a comprehensive gesture of his hand.
"No, no! When death comes--and 'twill not be long coming--let it find me
with my face turned to the mountains, and nothing but their kingly
crests between me and the blessed sky! Come, my lad!" and he relapsed
into his ordinary tone. "If thou art like me when I was thy age, every
minute passed away from thy love seems an eternity! Let us go to her--we
had best wait till the decks are dry before we assemble up here again."
They descended at once into the saloon, where they found Thelma being
initiated into the mysteries of chess by Duprez, while Macfarlane and
Lorimer looked idly on. She glanced up from the board as her father and
Errington entered, and smiled at them both with a slightly heightened
color.
"This is such a wonderful game, father!" she said. "And I am so stupid,
I cannot understand it! So Monsieur Pierre is trying to make me remember
the moves."
"Nothing is easier!" declared Duprez. "I was showing you how the bishop
goes, so--cross-ways," and he illustrated his lesson. "He is a dignitary
of the Church, you perceive. _Bien!_ it follows that he cannot go in a
straight line,--if you observe them well, you will see that all the
religious gentlemen play at cross purposes. You are very quick,
Mademoiselle Gueldmar,--you have perfectly comprehended the move of the
Castle, and the pretty plunge of the knight. Now, as I told you, the
queen can do anything--all the pieces shiver in their shoes before her!"
"Why?" she asked, feeling a little embarrassed, as Sir Philip came and
sat beside her, looking at her with an undoubtedly composed air of
absolute proprietorship.
"Why? _Enfin_, the reason is simple!" answered Pierre. "The queen is a
woman,--everything must give way to her wish!"
"And the king?" she inquired.
"Ah! _Le pauvre Roi!_ He can do very little--almost nothing! He can only
move one step at a time, and that with much labor and hesitation--he is
the wooden image of Louis XVI!"
"Then," said the girl quickly, "the object of the game is to protect a
king who is not worth protecting!"
Duprez laughed. "Exactly! And thus, in this charming game, you have the
history of many nations! Mademoiselle Gueldmar has put the matter
excellently! Chess is for those who intend to form republics. All the
worry and calculation--all the moves of pawns, bishops, knights,
castles, and queens,--all to shelter the throne which is not worth
protecting! Excellent! Mademoiselle, you are not in favor of
monarchies!"
"I do not know," said Thelma; "I have never thought of such things. But
kings should be great men,--wise and powerful, better and braver than
all their subjects, should they not?"
"Undoubtedly!" remarked Lorimer; "but, it's a curious thing, they seldom
are. Now, our queen, God bless her--"
"Hear, hear!" interrupted Errington, laughing good-humoredly. "I won't
have a word said against the dear old lady, Lorimer! Granted that
she hates London, and sees no fun in being stared at by vulgar crowds, I
think she's quite right,--and I sympathize heartily with her liking for
a cup of tea in peace and quiet with some old Scotch body who doesn't
care whether she's a queen or a washerwoman."
"I think," said Macfarlane slowly, "that royalty has its duties, ye see,
an' though I canna say I object to Her Majesty's homely way o' behavin',
still there are a few matters that wad be the better for her pairsonal
attention."
"Oh bother!" said Errington gaily. "Look at that victim of the nation,
the Prince of Wales! The poor fellow hasn't a moment's peace of his
life,--what with laying foundation stones, opening museums, inspecting
this and visiting that, he is like a costermonger's donkey, that must
gee-up or gee-wo as his master, the people bid. If he smiles at a woman,
it is instantly reported that he's in love with her,--if he frankly says
he considers her pretty, there's no end to the scandal. Poor royal
wretch! I pity him from my heart! The unwashed, beer-drinking,
gin-swilling classes, who clamor for shortened hours of labor, and want
work to be expressly invented for their benefit, don't suffer a bit more
than Albert Edward, who is supposed to be rolling idly in the very lap
of luxury, and who can hardly call his soul his own. Why, the man can't
eat a mutton-chop without there being a paragraph in the papers headed,
'Diet of the Prince of Wales.' His life is made an infinite bore to him,
I'm positive!"
Gueldmar looked thoughtful. "I know little about kings or princes," he
said, "but it seems to me, from what I _do_ know, that they have but
small power. They are mere puppets. In olden times they possessed
supremacy, but now--"
"I will tell you," interrupted Duprez excitedly, "who it is that rules
the people in these times,--it is the _Pen_--_Madame La Plume_. A little
black, sharp, scratching devil she is,--empress of all nations! No crown
but a point,--no royal robe save ink! It is certain that as long as
_Madame la Plume_ gambols freely over her realms of paper, so long must
kings and autocrats shake in their shoes and be uncertain of their
thrones. Mon Dieu! if I had but the gift of writing, I would conquer the
world!"
"There are an immense number of people writing just now, Pierre,"
remarked Lorimer, with a smile, "yet they don't do much in the
conquering line."
"Because they are afraid!" said Duprez. "Because they have not the
courage of their opinions! Because they dare not tell the truth!"
"Upon my life, I believe you are right!" said Errington. "If there were
a man bold enough to declare truths and denounce lies, I should imagine
it quite possible that he might conquer the world,--or, at any rate,
make it afraid of him."
"But is the world so full of lies?" asked Thelma timidly.
Lorimer looked at her gravely. "I fear so, Miss Gueldmar! I think it has
a tolerable harvest of them every year,--a harvest, too, that never
fails! But I say, Phil! Look at the sun shining! Let us go up on
deck,--we shall soon be getting back to the Altenfjord."
They all rose, threw on their caps, and left the saloon with the
exception of Errington, who lingered behind, watching his opportunity,
and as Thelma followed her father he called her back softly--
"Thelma!"
She hesitated, and then turned towards him,--her father saw her
movement, smiled at her, and nodded kindly, as he passed through the
saloon doors and disappeared. With a beating heart, she sprang quickly
to her lover's side, and as he caught her in his arms, she whispered--
"You have told him?"
"Your father? Yes, my darling!" murmured Philip, as he kissed her sweet,
upturned lips. "Be quite happy--he knows everything. Come, Thelma! tell
me again you love me--I have not heard you say it properly yet!"
She smiled dreamily as she leaned against his breast and looked up into
his eyes.
"I cannot say it properly!" she said. "There is no language for my
heart! If I could tell you all I feel, you would think it foolish, I am
sure, because it is all so wild and strange,"--she stopped, and her face
grew pale,--"oh!" she murmured with a slight tremor; "it is terrible!"
"What is terrible, my sweet one?" asked Errington drawing her more
closely, and folding her more tightly in his arms.
She sighed deeply. "To have no more life of my own!" she answered, while
her low voice quivered with intense feeling. "It has all gone--to you!
And yours has come to me!--is it not strange and almost sad? How your
heart beats, poor boy!--I can hear it throb, throb--so fast!--here,
where I am resting my head." She looked up, and her little white hand
caressed his cheek. "Philip," she said very softly, "what are you
thinking about? Your eyes shine so brightly--do you know you have
beautiful eyes?"
"Have I?" he murmured abstractedly, looking down on that exquisite,
innocent, glowing face, and trembling with the force of the restrained
passion that kindled through him. "I don't know about that!--yours seem
to me like two stars fallen from heaven! Oh, Thelma, my darling!--God
make me worthy of you."
He spoke with intense fervor,--kissing her with a tenderness, in which
there was something of reverence as well as fear. The whole soul of the
man was startled and roused to inexpressible devotion, by the absolute
simplicity and purity of her nature--the direct frankness with which she
had said her life was his--his!--and in what way was HE fitted to be the
guardian and possessor of this white lily from the garden of God? She
was so utterly different to all women as he had known them--as different
as a bird of paradise to a common house-sparrow. Meanwhile, as these
thoughts flitted through his brain, she moved gently from his embrace
and smiled proudly, yet sweetly.
"Worthy of me?" she said softly and wonderingly. "It is I that will pray
to be made worthy of _you_! You must not put it wrongly, Philip!"