Guldmar looked thoughtful. "I know little about kings or princes," he said, "but it seems to me, from what I _do_ know, that they have but small power. They are mere puppets. In olden times they possessed supremacy, but now--"

"I will tell you," interrupted Duprez excitedly, "who it is that rules the people in these times,--it is the _Pen_--_Madame La Plume_. A little black, sharp, scratching devil she is,--empress of all nations! No crown but a point,--no royal robe save ink! It is certain that as long as _Madame la Plume_ gambols freely over her realms of paper, so long must kings and autocrats shake in their shoes and be uncertain of their thrones. Mon Dieu! if I had but the gift of writing, I would conquer the world!"

"There are an immense number of people writing just now, Pierre,"

remarked Lorimer, with a smile, "yet they don't do much in the conquering line."

"Because they are afraid!" said Duprez. "Because they have not the courage of their opinions! Because they dare not tell the truth!"

"Upon my life, I believe you are right!" said Errington. "If there were a man bold enough to declare truths and denounce lies, I should imagine it quite possible that he might conquer the world,--or, at any rate, make it afraid of him."

"But is the world so full of lies?" asked Thelma timidly.

Lorimer looked at her gravely. "I fear so, Miss Guldmar! I think it has a tolerable harvest of them every year,--a harvest, too, that never fails! But I say, Phil! Look at the sun shining! Let us go up on deck,--we shall soon be getting back to the Altenfjord."

They all rose, threw on their caps, and left the saloon with the exception of Errington, who lingered behind, watching his opportunity, and as Thelma followed her father he called her back softly--

"Thelma!"

She hesitated, and then turned towards him,--her father saw her movement, smiled at her, and nodded kindly, as he pa.s.sed through the saloon doors and disappeared. With a beating heart, she sprang quickly to her lover's side, and as he caught her in his arms, she whispered--

"You have told him?"

"Your father? Yes, my darling!" murmured Philip, as he kissed her sweet, upturned lips. "Be quite happy--he knows everything. Come, Thelma! tell me again you love me--I have not heard you say it properly yet!"

She smiled dreamily as she leaned against his breast and looked up into his eyes.

"I cannot say it properly!" she said. "There is no language for my heart! If I could tell you all I feel, you would think it foolish, I am sure, because it is all so wild and strange,"--she stopped, and her face grew pale,--"oh!" she murmured with a slight tremor; "it is terrible!"

"What is terrible, my sweet one?" asked Errington drawing her more closely, and folding her more tightly in his arms.

She sighed deeply. "To have no more life of my own!" she answered, while her low voice quivered with intense feeling. "It has all gone--to you!

And yours has come to me!--is it not strange and almost sad? How your heart beats, poor boy!--I can hear it throb, throb--so fast!--here, where I am resting my head." She looked up, and her little white hand caressed his cheek. "Philip," she said very softly, "what are you thinking about? Your eyes shine so brightly--do you know you have beautiful eyes?"

"Have I?" he murmured abstractedly, looking down on that exquisite, innocent, glowing face, and trembling with the force of the restrained pa.s.sion that kindled through him. "I don't know about that!--yours seem to me like two stars fallen from heaven! Oh, Thelma, my darling!--G.o.d make me worthy of you."

He spoke with intense fervor,--kissing her with a tenderness, in which there was something of reverence as well as fear. The whole soul of the man was startled and roused to inexpressible devotion, by the absolute simplicity and purity of her nature--the direct frankness with which she had said her life was his--his!--and in what way was HE fitted to be the guardian and possessor of this white lily from the garden of G.o.d? She was so utterly different to all women as he had known them--as different as a bird of paradise to a common house-sparrow. Meanwhile, as these thoughts flitted through his brain, she moved gently from his embrace and smiled proudly, yet sweetly.

"Worthy of me?" she said softly and wonderingly. "It is I that will pray to be made worthy of _you_! You must not put it wrongly, Philip!"

He made no answer, but looked at her as she stood before him, majestic as a young empress in her straight, unadorned white gown.

"Thelma!" he said suddenly, "do you know how lovely you are?"

"Yes!" she answered simply; "I know it, because I am like my mother. But it is not anything to be beautiful,--unless one is loved,--and then it is different! I feel much more beautiful now, since you think me pleasant to look at!"

Philip laughed and caught her hand. "What a child you are!" he said.

"Now let me see this little finger." And he loosened from his watch-chain a half-hoop ring of brilliants. "This belonged to _my_ mother, Thelma," he continued gently, "and since her death I have always carried it about with me. I resolved never to part with it, except to--"

He paused and slipped it on the third finger of her left hand, where it sparkled bravely.

She gazed at it in surprise. "You part with it now?" she asked, with wonder in her accents. "I do not understand!"

He kissed her. "No? I will explain again, Thelma!--and you shall not laugh at me as you did the very first time I saw you! I resolved never to part with this ring, I say, except to--my promised wife. _Now_ do you understand?"

She blushed deeply, and her eyes dropped before his ardent gaze.

"I do thank you very much, Philip,"--she faltered timidly,--she was about to say something further when suddenly Lorimer entered the saloon.

He glanced from Errington to Thelma, and from Thelma back again to Errington,--and smiled. So have certain brave soldiers been known to smile in face of a death-shot. He advanced with his usual languid step and nonchalant air, and removing his cap, bowed gravely and courteously.

"Let me be the first to offer my congratulations to the future Lady Errington! Phil, old man! . . . I wish you joy!"

CHAPTER XV.

"Why, sir, in the universal game of double-dealing, shall not the cleverest tricksters play each other false by haphazard, and so betray their closest secrets, to their own and their friends'

infinite amazement?"--CONGREVE.

When Olaf Guldmar and his daughter left the yacht that evening, Errington accompanied them, in order to have the satisfaction of escorting his beautiful betrothed as far as her own door. They were all three very silent--the _bonde_ was pensive, Thelma shy, and Errington himself was too happy for speech. Arriving at the farmhouse, they saw Sigurd curled up under the porch, playing idly with the trailing rose-branches, but, on hearing their footsteps, he looked up, uttered a wild exclamation, and fled. Guldmar tapped his own forehead significantly.

"He grows worse and worse, the poor lad!" he said somewhat sorrowfully.

"And yet there is a strange mingling of foresight and wit with his wild fancies. Wouldst thou believe it, Thelma, child," and here he turned to his daughter and encircled her waist with his arm--"he seemed to know how matters were with thee and Philip, when I was yet in the dark concerning them!"

This was the first allusion her father had made to her engagement, and her head drooped with a sort of sweet shame.

"Nay, now, why hide thy face?" went on the old man cheerily. "Didst thou think I would grudge my bird her summer-time? Not I! And little did I hope for thee, my darling, that thou wouldst find a shelter worthy of thee in this wild world!" He paused a moment, looking tenderly down upon her, as she nestled in mute affection against his breast,--then addressing himself to Errington, he went on--

"We have a story in our Norse religion, my lad, of two lovers who declared their pa.s.sion to each other, on one stormy night in the depth of winter. They were together in a desolate hut on the mountains, and around them lay unbroken tracts of frozen snow. They were descended from the G.o.ds, and therefore the G.o.ds protected them--and it happened that after they had sworn their troth, the doors of the snow-bound hut flew suddenly open, and lo! the landscape had changed--the hills were gay with gra.s.s and flowers,--the sky was blue and brilliant, the birds sang, and everywhere was heard the ripple of waters let loose from their icy fetters, and gamboling down the rocks in the joyous sun. This was the work of the G.o.ddess Friga,--the first kiss exchanged by the lovers she watched over, banished Winter from the land, and Spring came instead.

'Tis a pretty story, and true all the world over--true for all men and women of all creeds! It must be an ice-bound heart indeed that will not warm to the touch of love--and mine, though aged, grows young again in the joy of my children." He put his daughter gently from him to-wards Philip, saying with more gravity, "Go to him, child!--go--with thy old father's blessing! And take with thee the three best virtues of a wife,--truth, humility, and obedience. Good night, my son!" and he wrung Errington's hand with fervor. "You'll take longer to say good night to Thelma," and he laughed, "so I'll go in and leave you to it!"

And with a good-natured nod, he entered the house whistling a tune as he went, that they might not think he imagined himself lonely or neglected,--and the two lovers paced slowly up and down the garden-path together, exchanging those first confidences which to outsiders seem so eminently foolish, but which to those immediately concerned are most wonderful, delightful, strange, and enchanting beyond all description.

Where, from a practical point of view, is the sense of such questions as these--"When did you love me first?" "What did you feel when I said so-and-so?" "Have you dreamt of me often?" "Will you love me always, always, always?" and so on _ad infinitum_. "Ridiculous rubbish!"

exclaims the would-be strong-minded, but secretly savage old maid,--and the selfishly matter-of-fact, but privately fidgety and lonely old bachelor. Ah! but there are those who could tell you that at one time or another of their lives this "ridiculous rubbish" seemed far more important than the decline and fall of empires,--more necessary to existence than light and air,--more fraught with hope, fear, suspense, comfort, despair, and anxiety than anything that could be invented or imagined! Philip and Thelma,--man and woman in the full flush of youth, health, beauty, and happiness,--had just entered their Paradise,--their fairy-garden,--and every little flower and leaf on the way had special, sweet interest for them. Love's indefinable glories,--Love's proud possibilities,--Love's long ecstasies,--these, like so many spirit-figures, seemed to smile and beckon them on, on, on, through golden seas of sunlight,--through flower-filled fields of drowsy entrancement,--through winding ways of rose-strewn and lily-scented leaf.a.ge,--on, on, with eyes and hearts absorbed in one another,--unseeing any end to the dreamlike wonders that, like some heavenly picture-scroll, unrolled slowly and radiantly before them. And so they murmured those unwise, tender things which no wisdom in the world has ever surpa.s.sed, and when Philip at last said "Good night!" with more reluctance than Romeo, and pressed his parting kiss on his love's sweet, fresh mouth,--the riddle with which he had puzzled himself so often was resolved at last,--life _was_ worth living, worth cherishing, worth enn.o.bling. The reason of all things seemed clear to him,--Love, and Love only, supported, controlled, and grandly completed the universe! He accepted this answer to all perplexities,--his heart expanded with a sense of large content--his soul was satisfied.

Meanwhile, during his friend's absence from the yacht, Lorimer took it upon himself to break the news to Duprez and Macfarlane. These latter young gentlemen had had their suspicions already, but they were not quite prepared to hear them so soon confirmed. Lorimer told the matter in his own way.

"I say, you fellows!" he remarked carelessly, as he sat smoking in their company on deck, "you'd better look out! If you stare at Miss Guldmar too much, you'll have Phil down upon you!"

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Duprez slyly, "the dear Phil-eep is in love?"

"Something more than that," said Lorimer, looking absently at the cigarette he held between his fingers,--"he's an engaged man."

"Engaged!" cried Macfarlane excitedly. "Ma certes! He has the deevil's own luck! He's just secured for himself the grandest woman in the warld!"

"_Je le crois bien!_" said Duprez gravely, nodding his head several times. "Phil-eep is a wise boy! He is the fortunate one! I am not for marriage at all--no! not for myself,--it is to tie one's hands, to become a prisoner,--and that would not suit me; but if I were inclined to captivity, I should like Mademoiselle Guldmar for my beautiful gaoler. And beautiful she is, _mon Dieu!_ . . . beyond all comparison!"

Lorimer was silent, so was Macfarlane. After a pause Duprez spoke again.