Thelma | Page 8

part of the penalty he had to
pay for being rich and good-looking to boot, he was so much run after
by women that he found it hard to understand the haughty indifference
with which he had just been treated by one of the most fair, if not the
fairest of her sex. He was piqued, and his amour propre was wounded.
"I'm sure my question was harmless enough," he mused, half crossly,
"She might have answered it."
He glanced out impatiently over the Fjord. There was no sign of his
returning yacht as yet.
"What a time those fellows are!" he said to himself. "If the pilot were
not on board, I should begin to think they had run the Eulalie aground."
He finished his cigar and threw the end of it into the water; then he
stood moodily watching the ripples 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,