Thelma | Page 8

as they rolled softly up and caressed the shining brown shore at his feet, thinking all the while of that strange girl, so wonderfully lovely in face and form, so graceful and proud of bearing, with her great blue eyes and masses of dusky gold hair.
His meeting with her was a sort of adventure in its way--the first of the kind he had had for some time. He was subject to fits of weariness or caprice, and it was in one of these that he had suddenly left London in the height of the season, and had started for Norway on a yachting cruise with three chosen companions, one of whom, George Lorimer, once an Oxford fellow-student, was now his "chum"--the Pythias to his Damon, the fidus Achates of his closest confidence. Through the unexpected wakening up of energy in the latter young gentleman, who was usually of a most sleepy and indolent disposition, he happened to be quite alone on this particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accompanied in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter solitude was with him a rare occurrence, and his present experience of it had chanced in this wise. Lorimer the languid, Lorimer the lazy, Lorimer who had remained blandly unmoved and drowsy through all the magnificent panorama of the Norwegian coast, including the Sogne Fjord and the toppling peaks of the Justedal glaciers; Lorimer who had slept peacefully in a hammock on deck, even while the yacht was passing under the looming splendors of Melsnipa; Lorimer, now that he had arrived at the Alton Fjord, then at its loveliest in the full glory of the continuous sunshine, developed a new turn of mind, and began to show sudden and abnormal interest in the scenery. In this humor he expressed his desire to "take a sight" of the midnight sun from the island of Seiland, and also declared his resolve to try the nearly impossible ascent of the great Jedke glacier.
Errington laughed at the idea. "Don't tell me," he said, "that you are going in for climbing. And do you suppose I believe that you are interested--you of all people--in the heavenly bodies?"
"Why not?" asked Lorimer, with a candid smile. "I'm not in the least interested in earthly bodies, except my own. The sun's a jolly fellow. I sympathize with him in his present condition. He's in his cups--that's what's the matter--and he can't be persuaded to go to bed. I know his feelings perfectly; and I want to survey his gloriously inebriated face from another point of view. Don't laugh, Phil; I'm in earnest! And I really have quite a curiosity to try my skill in amateur mountaineering. Jedke's the very place for a first effort. It offers difficulties, and"--this with a slight yawn--"I like to surmount difficulties; it's rather amusing."
His mind was so evidently set upon the excursion, that Sir Philip made no attempt to dissuade him from it, but excused himself from accompanying the party on the plea that he wanted to finish a sketch he had recently begun. So that when the Eulalie got up her steam, weighed anchor, and swept gracefully away towards the coast of the adjacent islands, her owner was left, at his desire, to the seclusion of a quiet nook on the shore of the Altenfjord, where he succeeded in making a bold and vivid picture of the scene before him. The colors of the sky had, however, defied his palette, and after one or two futile attempts to transfer to his canvas a few of the gorgeous tints that illumed the landscape, he gave up the task in despair, and resigned himself to the dolce far niente of absolute enjoyment. From his half pleasing, half melancholy reverie the voice of the unknown maiden had startled him, and now,--now she had left him to resume it if he chose,--left him, in chill displeasure, with a cold yet brilliant flash of something like scorn in her wonderful eyes.
Since her departure the scenery, in some unaccountable way, seemed less attractive to him, the songs of the birds, who were all awake, fell on inattentive ears; he was haunted by her face and voice, and he was, moreover, a little out of humor with himself for having been such a blunderer as to give her offense and thus leave an unfavorable impression on her mind.
"I suppose I WAS rude," he considered after a while. "She seemed to think so, at any rate. By Jove! what a crushing look she gave me! A peasant? Not she! If she had said she was an empress I shouldn't have been much surprised. But a mere common peasant, with that regal figure and those white hands! I don't believe it. Perhaps our pilot, Valdemar, knows