"To-morrow, our journey together will be over," said the Captain.

"To-morrow morning you will wake at Christiansand, after that little Ragna and I go on to Molde alone--if we pick up no other pa.s.sengers. I am sorry Your Highness leaves us so soon--if ever you should wish a cruise in northern waters, the old _Norje_ and I are at your service, Prince!"

"Thank you, Captain Petersen," said Mirko, "I have enjoyed this little trip exceedingly, thanks to your kind attentions and to Mademoiselle, and I wish I might promise to renew it in the near future--but I am not entirely my own master, you know."

Presently the Captain remarked that it was growing late, and Ragna, rising, said she would go to bed. The Captain wished her a hearty, if gruff "Good-night," but Mirko walked with her to the companion-way, and after kissing her hand, held it while he murmured in a low voice:

"You will never forget this evening, nor shall I--dear!"

With a final pressure he released her hand and Ragna went slowly down.

Captain Petersen grumbled to himself as he watched them.

"Pity the fellow is a Prince. Handsome couple they would make, handsome couple! After all, who knows, little Ragna is as pretty as a princess--he might do worse!"

Prince Mirko returned to him fumbling vainly in his pockets.

"Have you a match about you, Captain?" he asked, "I must have left my box below."

On a former occasion he had offered the Captain a cigarette from his case, but the old sea-dog had refused it, explaining that he would get no good out of a little paper stick, a pipe was the thing for him.

The Captain produced a box of matches and the Prince lit his cigarette.

Seeing him disinclined for further conversation, the old sailor left him, and Mirko, leaning both elbows on the rail enjoyed his smoke while he reviewed the events of the evening. In his innermost heart he was a little ashamed of having given way to an impulse but then, he reflected complacently, there was no real harm done, and after all, what is a kiss? He was rather amazed at himself for giving the slightest importance to the occurrence. His thoughts turned again to Ragna.

"What a little witch it is, and as unsophisticated as a newborn babe; pretty, too, much too pretty, in the moonlight!" The fresh taste of her mouth came back to him, like a strawberry, just ripe, he thought, and the throbbing of her firm young bosom, as he had pressed her to him.

What a mistress she would make! Then he laughed at himself--"What! take a mistress, a mere school girl at that, from the bosom of a respectable bourgeoise family! What a row there would be! No, my son," he admonished himself, "that game is not worth the candle!" He remembered too well the trouble subsequent to his latest escapade of the sort, and made a wry face. "No, no more luring of innocent maidens from their happy homes!"

He thought of Ragna going to bed in her little cabin, and a wild desire came over him to follow her. The recollection of the kiss he had given her suddenly maddened him. His pulses beat strongly and rang in his ears. He must have her, he felt, must have her in spite of everything and he started towards the companion-way, but before he reached it shame seized him, and thrusting his hands savagely into his greatcoat pockets he strode up and down the deck, fighting the impulse.

"Am I lost to all sense of decency?" he murmured, "What has come over me?"

He walked until he was tired out, then went below and locked himself into his state-room.

Ragna, as soon as she reached her cabin, took down the oil lamp from its swinging bracket and carrying it to the small mirror studied her face.

Was this creature with gleaming eyes, rosy cheeks, red mouth and loosened hair the prim little Ragna of but a few hours since? This looked more like the head of some young Bacchante, wine flushed and triumphant. Indeed the "Princess" slept no longer, the spell was broken and Ragna knew it. She replaced the lamp and undressed slowly, her thoughts running tumultuous riot. She was astonished at finding herself neither indignant nor ashamed--all that had pa.s.sed. It seemed to her that she had entered upon a new life, a door had opened upon a heretofore unknown country, and many things came into perspective, that she had not understood before. She had crossed the dividing line, she was no longer a child, Eve had tasted of the apple.

As she lay in her berth some of the Prince's sayings came into her mind, "an oasis in the desert," "there is no to-morrow and no yesterday," and for the moment she hugged the thought, little dreaming how insidious it was to prove. Who was to tell her that some day Eve's apple would prove to be an Apple of Sodom? _Carpe diem_ was the Prince's avowed motto, and was she already a convert and had she forgotten her own answer, "Somebody has to bear the consequences"? She was too young though, to realise that every act, no matter how insignificant, how detached apparently from the main trend of life, has far-reaching consequences, cropping out when we least expect them, bearing in their wake the most extraordinary changes.

How was she to know that the kiss on deck in the moonlight bore in it the seed of her future life. Her lips burned, and she felt, in imagination, the pressure of Mirko's arms about her,--but at the same time she was curiously conscious that this was not love, or not yet.

She felt, but could not define the distinction. Still she was not ashamed, being still borne up by the wave of elemental impulse; she had no room as yet for introspection and self blame--indeed they might never come. The timid, untried girl of yesterday had vanished, a new, pa.s.sionate Ragna had taken her place.

CHAPTER V

Lars Andersen met his daughter at Molde. He seemed to have grown older, and his face had a care-worn look. "The Grandmother was ill," he said; "she had been ailing for some time, but now was bedfast and could not live long."

Though he was truly glad to welcome Ragna home again, his undemonstrative manner gave hardly a hint of it and the girl felt her joy at seeing him effectually repressed and chilled.

At dinner with her father and the Captain she sat almost silent until the old sailor rallied her on her dulness.

"You had more to say for yourself, Froken, when the Prince was with us!"

"The Prince! What Prince?" asked Andersen.

"Prince Mirko of Montegria, who crossed with us from Hamburg to Christiansand, on his way to the Court of Russia." The Captain went on to give a roseate account of the Prince, his condescension, his amiability, and wound up with:

"Little Ragna entertained him as though she had been a court-lady, and you may well be proud of her!"

Andersen frowned; he knew more of men and of the ways of the world than did the good Captain, who in many respects was but a grown-up child, and he was displeased that his young and inexperienced daughter should have been thrown into such companionship with a strange young man, prince or no prince, as the Captain's account suggested.

Still, he did not wish to hurt the feelings of his old friend, and since it was over and done with, the less said about the matter, the better.

Ragna, watching his face, guessed with newborn intuition the trend of his thoughts, and with feminine diplomacy changed the subject, leading the talk to her stay at the convent and entertaining the two men with a lively account of the nuns, and of her school-fellows.

Her father studied her with a clearing face.

"What a child it still is," he thought, "this Prince Mirko nonsense has rolled off her mind like water off a duck's back!" So he mused, and putting aside his cares, encouraged her to continue her chatter. The Captain was delighted to see his friend unbend, and joined his efforts to Ragna's to keep the ball rolling.

So the evening pa.s.sed merrily enough and it was not till the girl was alone in her room that she let herself go. Rather scornfully she thought:

"Oh, yes, they all think me a child! I am nearly nineteen, and they think I have learned nothing but French verbs and embroidery. Well, let them think it, better so! But if they knew, if they could guess!"

She shook out her long golden hair--it fell nearly to her knees--she slipped out of her clothes and winding her long gauze scarf about her, looked at herself in the gla.s.s, turning this way and that. Her body, wonderfully white and firm had slight graceful curves like those of a young nymph. She played with her hair, draping it about her shoulders and bosom--truly this was a new Ragna! Then a sudden shame came over her; she put on her nightgown, and blowing out the candle, plunged into bed and lay blinking in the darkness. The thought she had had was not: "I am beautiful," but "_He_ would think me beautiful."

"This must not go on," she said to herself. "You were a fool, Ragna, to let him kiss you--you are a fool to think about him at all. Why can't you let it be just an episode,--as he said? Of course he was only playing with you. What do you suppose it meant to him to say a few complimentary things to a little country girl--and kiss her?" But she thought of the quiver in his deep voice, as he talked to her, on deck that last evening, the pa.s.sionate vibration of it that had fascinated and stirred her, body and soul. She thought of his burning lips on hers and his arms straining her to him so closely that it hurt her. No, in that moment at least he had been sincere, he had loved her! The formal leave-taking under the eyes of Angelescu and the Captain had meant nothing. Oh! why could she not have been a princess--now she would never see him again! Great tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down, wetting her pillow, but she did not wipe them away. She was thinking how dull it would be at home--how unendurable after this one brief glimpse into the reality of life and emotion. Her innermost soul rebelled; she threw out her arms, then strained them to her bosom.

"I want to live, to live, to live!" she cried to herself.

When she was calmer her clear mind rea.s.serted its power as she reflected that after all she was very young still, that the future might bring much.

"It shall," she promised herself. "I will make it! I will not, I will not be buried alive!"

She had not stopped to ask herself if she loved Prince Mirko; as a fact she did not, but he had awakened her to life, he was identical to her with Life and emotion. The mere fact of his being a stranger to her, quite outside her limited field of experience, of his being a Prince and heir to a throne, endowed him in her eyes with a halo of romance. In default of a real hero, he would become her dream-hero, the axle round which would revolve the wheel of her intimate thought.

In the morning, when dressed for the homeward journey, she joined her father in the dining-room; she presented to his eyes the same innocently childlike expression she had worn the evening before, and he kissed her smooth brow, little dreaming of the thoughts which filled her head.

As they drew nearer home, and the familiar mountains, the Trolltinder with its jagged crest, and oddly shaped Romser Horn, loomed up against the sky, Ragna felt her spirits rising. The air was cool and crisp, the little horse trotted briskly along, shaking his short stiff mane, the meadows were carpeted with flowers: forget-me-nots, pansies, and the purple swamp orchids, the pine-trees filled the air with balsam. It was home, the country of her birth. They rounded the last turn in the long road; the sun was setting and the long rays illuminated the summits of the mountains which her childish imagination had peopled with gnomes and trolls.

Now they were turning in at the wooden gateway--another few minutes and there was the long low cinnamon-coloured house, smoke rising hospitably from the chimneys, behind it the stables and sod-roofed cottages, and on the steps stood a welcoming group, mother, the sisters. "Oh, how they have grown," thought Ragna, "and there is Aunt Gitta too!" she cried.

Behind them stood the servants, smiling and excited.

Almost before the _stulkjarre_ had stopped, Ragna was out over the wheel, embracing them all in turn, laughing and trying to answer a dozen questions at once.

Fru Andersen held her daughter at arm's length, to see her better.