"Oh--oh, how good you are! May I run home and tell mother, now?"

"Yes, run along and tell her as quickly as you like. Only understand, not a word to anyone else about it. I'll come round this evening, anyway, and fix it all up."

Hans, in his delight, forgot all about hiding the hole in his trousers; he grasped his friend's hands and looked at him with glistening eyes.

"Is it really true--that I'm to go to Christiania?"

"True as ever could be, little lad, and now off you go--I'll come along soon."

Holm took the organist's letter and read it through once again.

"n.o.ble old fellow--so you'd sacrifice your hard-earned money and give your trouble for nothing? Not if I know it; you shan't be a loser there. And as for Hans, I'll see to his education myself. He shall go to Paris instead of those madcap youngsters with their parties. My '52 Madeira too! But we'll soon put a stop to that."

V

MRS. RANTZAU'S STORY

She was a teacher of singing, and had only recently settled in the town. Holm had never seen her, but now that her daughter was working in his office, and Marie had begun taking lessons with Mrs. Rantzau herself, he felt it his duty to call.

Moreover, he had some secret hope that it might be possible here to find an ally in his plan for combating Marie's artistic craze. In addition to which, she was Betty's mother....

The place was four storeys up, and Holm, tired after his climb, sat down at the top of the stairs for a moment before ringing the bell.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la--he could hear a woman's voice singing scales inside, the same thing over and over again. A little after came another voice, which he took to be Mrs. Rantzau's.

"Mouth wide open, please; that's it--now breathe!"

Holm rang the bell and Mrs. Rantzau opened the door.

He stood dumbfounded for a moment, staring at her.

"Heavens alive--it can't be--Bianca, is it really you?"

She turned pale, came close to him and whispered:

"For Heaven's sake, not a word." Then, taking him by the arm, she thrust him gently into a room adjoining.

He heard the young lady take her departure, and a moment later Mrs.

Rantzau stood before him.

She was still a magnificently handsome woman. The dark eyes were deep and clear as ever, the black hair waved freely over the forehead, albeit with a thread of silver here and there. Her figure was slender and well-poised, her whole appearance eloquent of energy and life.

"If you knew how I have dreaded this moment, Mr. Holm," she began, then suddenly stopped.

"H'm--yes. It's a good many years now since last we met, Bianca--beg pardon, Mrs. Rantzau, I mean."

"Fifteen--yes, it's fifteen years ago. And much has happened since then. I didn't know really whether to go and call on you myself, and ask you not to say anything about the way we met, and how I was living then. But then again, I thought you must have forgotten me ages ago."

"Forgotten! Not if I live to be a hundred."

"And then, too, I thought it might be awkward for Betty if I tried to renew our old acquaintance; you might be offended, and not care to keep her on at the office...."

"But--my dear lady--however could you imagine such a thing?"

"Oh, I know how good and kind you were when I knew you before--but people change sometimes. And you can understand, I'm sure, Mr. Holm, that my position here, my connection with my pupils, would be ruined if the past were known. Not that I've anything to be ashamed of, thank G.o.d, but you know yourself, in a little town like this, how people would look at a woman--or even a man, for that matter--whose life has been so--so unusual as mine."

"Dear lady, I understand, of course, but I should never have thought of mentioning a word of our relations in the past."

"Thanks, thanks! Oh, I can see now you have not changed. Kind and thoughtful as ever; you were good to me, Mr. Holm--not like the others." Her voice trembled a little, and she grasped his hand.

Holm flushed slightly, murmured a few polite words, and thought--of Betty.

Mrs. Rantzau continued: "I should like you to understand, to realise yourself the position I was placed in then. Will you let me tell you the whole story--if you've time?"

"Indeed I've time--you took up quite a considerable amount of my time before, you know," he added kindly.

"Ah, I see you're the same as ever, Mr. Holm, always bright and cheerful over things."

"Why, yes, I'm glad to say. It would be a pity not to."

"Well, let me begin. My life hasn't been a path of roses--far from it; it's been mostly thorns. If only I could write, I might make quite an exciting story of it all. I'm forty-two now, started life as a parson's daughter up in the north, was married to a poet, and lived with him in Paris; my child was born, and I was left a widow then. I had to keep myself and Betty by the work of my hands; sang at concerts, and accompanied in Hamburg, lived as a countess in Westphalia----"

"What--a countess?"

"Well, very nearly. But I'll tell you about that later. I taught French in Copenhagen, and painting in Gothenburg, was housekeeper to a lawyer in a little Norwegian town, nearly married him but not quite, and ended up here teaching singing. So you see I've been a good many things in my time."

"But tell me--tell me all about it," exclaimed Holm eagerly.

"Mr. Holm, you know the darkest part of all my life; it is only fair that you should know the rest. I've nothing to be ashamed of, for after all I have managed to earn a livelihood for myself and Betty. I was seventeen when I left home, and they said I was quite good-looking----"

"You're equal to anything on the market now, as we say in business----"

"Well, I came straight from the wilds of the Nordland to Christiania, and they called me 'the Nordland sun.' I was the most sought after at all the dances, and perhaps one of the most brilliant, for I came to the gay life of the capital with the freshness of a novice. It was not long before I became engaged to a young writer--a poet, he was----"

"The devil you did! Beg pardon, I'm sure, but to tell the truth I've no faith in that sort of people, as Banker Hermansen would say."

"We were both of us young and inexperienced; he dreamed of gaining world-wide fame by his pen, and I used to weep over his pa.s.sionate love poems. I was eighteen and he twenty-two, and I promised to follow him to the end of the world, for better or worse.

"Then one fine day we landed in Paris, without caring a jot for our people, our friends, or our own country. We were married there at the Swedish Church, and there I was, a poet's wife, with my people at home trying to forget the black sheep of the family.

"A few years pa.s.sed. But every day saw the breaking of one of the golden threads in our web of illusion, and when Betty was born we were in desperate straits.

"Poor old Thor, he used to sit up late at night writing stuff for the papers at home, all about magnificent functions he'd never been to at all, and warming his frozen fingers over a few bits of coal in the stove."

"And he might have made quite a decent living in an office," put in Holm sympathetically.