Dinner was drawing to an end and the long Pension dining-room was filled with a hubbub of conversation in many languages. Estelle Hagerup and Astrid were having a lively discussion on the advantages of matrimony as compared with single blessedness.

"I say," declared Estelle, "that no man living is worth a woman's giving up her whole life to him. Why should she? Why should the woman always give up to the man? Then there is the monotony of it. I should be tired to death of seeing the same face across the breakfast table every day in the year, and year in, year out!"

"You needn't look at him then," said Astrid, "or you could make him sit at the side, or have your breakfast in bed. Now I think it must be such a comfort to have someone to grumble at, and who is obliged to listen to you!"

"Oh, my dear, you'll find that all the grumbling won't be on your side!"

"I hope I shall bring my husband up too well for that!" said Astrid.

Estelle snorted.

"If only my dear Peter were alive!" sighed Fru Bjork, "he was such an amiable man. I never knew him to grumble."

"Ah, well, there's no telling," said Estelle, "he might have in time."

"My blessed Peter would never have grumbled," said Fru Bjork with finality. Astrid giggled.

"I should hate a man with no spirit, there would be no satisfaction in managing him."

The old Swedish lady raised her head.

"My dear, it is most unseemly for a young woman to talk of 'managing'

her husband. Young people nowadays have lost the virtue of obedience."

"Obedience is for children and the feeble-minded," said Astrid. The old lady gasped and raised her mittened hand.

"My dear, my dear, a wife should always obey her husband!"

"Well, I shan't when I'm married."

Froken Hagerup interposed:

"You'll find that you'll have to, to keep the peace."

"Keep the peace indeed! That will be Edvard's business. Ragna, why don't you say something?"

Ragna had been sitting silent; on being addressed she started and dropped her fork.

"I--I have a headache." Her cheeks flamed at the lie. Fru Bjork looked at her anxiously.

"I do hope you are not going to be ill, child! I am sure you have been tiring yourself out with all this going about alone, I don't half like it!"

"Stuff and nonsense," said Estelle, "she never looked better in her life! A night's rest and she will be all right again. You should not walk in the sun," she said to Ragna; "it is dangerous at this season of the year. It is probably that that gave you your headache."

"I believe Ragna's in love with somebody," said Astrid, "all this mooning about alone is a symptom, and she's losing her appet.i.te, too."

"Nonsense!" said Ragna angrily. "I am a bit tired, but as Estelle says, a night's rest will set me right. I think I shall go to bed now."

"I think you are right, Ragna," said Fru Bjork. "Take some quinine and cover yourself well. I shall come a little later to see if you are comfortable."

"Oh, please don't," said Ragna. "I feel quite sleepy already. I a.s.sure you there is nothing to worry about, I had rather no one came, it might wake me up."

Fru Bjork looked hurt.

"As you like," she said, and Ragna hated herself for her ungraciousness.

"Oh, why wasn't I born diplomatic?" she thought.

Astrid was looking at her rather maliciously through her lashes. The headache had not deceived her, but she had no suspicion of the truth; she thought that absence might have played advocate for some despised Christiania swain; she wondered who it might be, and promised herself that she would find out at the first opportunity.

When they rose from the table, Ragna went to her room and ostentatiously called for hot water. The others repaired to the drawing-room, where the old Swedish lady established herself with alacrity in the most comfortable armchair. A lady of uncertain nationality opened the pianoforte and played with faultless technique and absolutely no expression, selections from Beethoven and Chopin, and the rest of the company disposed themselves about the room, some reading, some sewing, some talking in small groups. Astrid withdrew to a window-recess with the art-student, with whom she had begun a mild flirtation. Fru Bjork settled herself near the fire and took out her knitting; her brow was furrowed and she puckered up her mouth. She was more worried about Ragna than she cared to admit; certainly the girl looked the picture of health, but she had been oddly absent-minded of late, and had seemed so evidently to prefer going about alone that gradually the other members of the party had given up offering to accompany her. Then her headache of this evening--.

"I do hope the child is not going to be ill," repeated the good woman to herself; she drew out a needle at the end of the row and meditatively scratched her head with it.

Ragna, meanwhile, was devoured by a fever of excitement. Unable to sit still she paced up and down her room; her hands trembled and she felt curious nervous qualms through her body. She pinned on her hat with unsteady fingers, drew on her gloves and threw a long dark cloak about her. When enough time had elapsed for all to be well settled in the drawing-room, she cautiously opened her door and locking it behind her, stole down the pa.s.sage, at the end of which a chambermaid was crocheting lace by the light of an oil lamp.

"Rosa," said Ragna in a low voice, "I am going out but I don't wish anyone to know of it. If you will let me in very quietly when I come back--I shan't be late--I will give you a present. I shall knock on the door with my knuckles three times,--like this. Do you understand?"

"_Si, Signorina_," answered the maid, showing her white teeth in a smile. It was a sly understanding smile that made Ragna hot and uncomfortable. She felt Rosa's curious eyes upon her as she went on down the pa.s.sageway to the door. In another minute she was flying down the poorly-lit stairs; at the foot of the last flight a dark figure detached itself from the surrounding gloom and came towards her.

"I thought you were never coming," said Mirko. His voice had an odd triumphant note, but Ragna in her excitement failed to notice it. He drew her arm through his and hurried her out and across the shadow side of the Piazza, to where a carriage was waiting.

"_Al Coliseo!_" he said to the driver.

Ragna sat in a constrained att.i.tude, her eyes cast down.

"Now," said Mirko, "you look as though you were embarking on a crime. I ask you what harm is there in this little escapade?"

"I do so hate to deceive them all! What would Fru Bjork say if she knew?"

"Has she never been young herself? If you knew, Ragna, the memories that half these good and prudish ladies carry under their starched fronts, you would be surprised. There is a proverb that says, 'when you are too old to give yourself to the Devil it is time to turn to G.o.d!'" Then seeing she looked shocked; "there, don't mind what I say,--I am so glad you have come that I am not half responsible. You can take my word for it that you are doing nothing very terrible. Do you think for a moment I would ask you to?"

"No," she answered.

"And you are glad you came?"

"I feel as if I were being carried off by a brigand," said Ragna.

The Prince wore a broad-brimmed soft felt hat casting the upper part of his face into deep shadow, he had thrown round him an Italian military cloak, the folds of which flung up and over his left shoulder had the grace of a toga. He really looked not unlike the gallant brigand of romance.

"Oh, indeed!" he laughed, "and supposing I were to carry you off, far away across the Campagne to a castle in the hills and hold you for ransom, what then?"

"What ransom would you set on me?"

"A ransom no one could pay but yourself--a king's ransom: your love. And the day you give it you would be free to go--if you so wished." He spoke jestingly but his voice had a deep undertone that thrilled the girl.

"Would you pay the ransom, oh, captive?"

"Even a captive lady could not love to order," laughed Ragna.