After the meal, a mandolin was brought out, and they sat round the fire in the great fireplace and had some music. Until at last Merle rose and said: "Now, mother, it's time you went to bed."

"Yes, dear," came the answer submissively, and Fru Uthoug said good-night, and Merle led her off.

Peer had risen to take leave, when Merle came in again. "Why," she said, "you're surely not going off before you've rowed Thea home?"

"Oh, Merle, please . . ." put in the other.

But when the two had taken their places in the boat and were just about to start up the lake, Merle came running down and said she might just as well come too.

Half an hour later, having seen the young girl safely ashore at her father's place, Merle and Peer were alone, rowing back through the still night over the waters of the lake, golden in the light and dark blue in the shadows. Merle leaned back in the stern, silent, trailing a small branch along the surface of the water behind. After a while Peer laid in his oars and let the boat drift.

"How beautiful it is!" he said.

The girl lifted her head and looked round. "Yes," she answered, and Peer fancied her voice had taken a new tone.

It was past midnight. Heights and woods and saeters lay lifeless in the soft suffused reddish light. The lake-trout were not rising any more, but now and again the screech of a cock-ptarmigan could be heard among the withies.

"What made you come just here for your holiday, I wonder," she asked suddenly.

"I leave everything to chance, Froken Uthoug. It just happened so. It's all so homelike here, wherever one goes. And it is so wonderful to be home in Norway again."

"But haven't you been to see your people—your father and mother—since you came home?"

"I—! Do you suppose I have a father and mother?"

"But near relations—surely you must have a brother or sister somewhere in the world?"

"Ah, if one only had! Though, after all, one can get on without."

She looked at him searchingly, as if trying to see whether he spoke in earnest. Then she said:

"Do you know that mother dreamed of you before you came?"

"Of me?" Peer's eyes opened wide. "What did she dream about me?"

A sudden flush came to the girl's face, and she shook her head. "It's foolish of me to sit here and tell you all this. But you see that was why we wanted so much to find out about you when you came. And it gives me a sort of feeling of our having known each other a long time."

"You appear to have a very constant flow of high spirits, Froken Uthoug!"

"I? Why do you think—? Oh, well, yes. One can come by most things, you know, if one has to have them."

"Even high spirits?"

She turned her head and looked towards the shore. "Some day perhaps—if we should come to be friends—I'll tell you more about it."

Peer bent to his oars and rowed on. The stillness of the night drew them nearer and nearer together, and made them silent; only now and then they would look at each other and smile.

"What mysterious creature is this I have come upon?" thought Peer. She might be about one-or two-and-twenty. She sat there with bowed head, and in this soft glow the oval face had a strange light of dreams upon it. But suddenly her glance came back and rested on him again, and then she smiled, and he saw that her mouth was large and her lips full and red.

"I wish I had been all over the world, like you," she said.

"Have you never been abroad, Froken Uthoug?" he asked.

"I spent a winter in Berlin, once, and a few months in South Germany. I played the violin a little, you see; and I hoped to take it up seriously abroad and make something of it—but—"

"Well, why shouldn't you?"

She was silent for a little, then at last she said: "I suppose you are sure to know about it some day, so I may just as well tell you now. Mother has been out of her mind."

"My dear Froken—"

"And when she's at home my—high spirits are needed to help her to be more or less herself."

He felt an impulse to rise and go to the girl, and take her head between his hands. But she looked up, with a melancholy smile; their eyes met in a long look, and she forgot to withdraw her glance.

"I must go ashore now," she said at last.

"Oh, so soon! Why, we have hardly begun our talk!"

"I must go ashore now," she repeated; and her voice, though still gentle, was not to be gainsaid.

At last Peer was alone, rowing back to his saeter. As he rowed he watched the girl going slowly up towards the cottage. When she reached the door she turned for the first time and waved to him. Then she stood for a moment looking after him, and then opened the door and disappeared. He gazed at the door some time longer, as if expecting to see it open again, but no sign of life was to be seen.

The sun's rim was showing now above the distant ranges in the east, and the white peaks in the north and west kindled in the morning glow. Peer laid in his oars again, and rested, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. What could this thing be that had befallen him today?

How could those peaks stand round so aloof and indifferent, and leave him here disconsolate and alone?

What was it, this new rushing in his ears; this new rhythm of his pulse? He lay back at last in the bottom of the boat, with hands clasped behind his head, and let boat and all things drift.

And when the glare of the rising sun came slanting into the boat and beat dazzlingly in his face, he only turned his head a little and let it shine full upon him.

Now she is lying asleep over there, the morning streaming red through her window—of whom is she dreaming as she sleeps?

Have you ever seen such eyebrows before? To press one's lips to them—to take her head between one's hand . . . and so it is to save your mother that you give up your own dreams, and to warm her soul that you keep that flame of gladness burning in you? Is that the sort you are?

Merle—was ever such a name? Are you called Merle?

Day spreads over the heavens, kindling all the night-clouds, great and small, to gold and scarlet. And here he lies, rocking, rocking, on no lake, but on a red stately-heaving ocean swell.

Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with calculations, with steel and fire. More and more knowledge, ever more striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all. But meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the hunger for that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and fiercer. You thought it was Norway that you needed—and now you are here. But is it enough?

Merle—is your name Merle?

There is nothing that can be likened to the first day of love. All your learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams—all has been nothing but dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together. And now has come a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its red glow over earth and heaven, and you stretch out your cold hands, and warm them, and shiver with joy that a new bliss has come upon the earth.

And all that you could not understand—the relation between the spark of eternity in your soul and the Power above, and the whole of endless space—has all of a sudden become so clear that you lie here trembling with joy at seeing to the very bottom of the infinite enigma.

You have but to take her by the hand, and "Here are we two," you say to the powers of life and death. "Here is she and here am I—we two"—and you send the anthem rolling aloft—a strain from little Louise's fiddle-bow mingling with it—not to the vaultings of any church, but into endless space itself. And Thou, Power above, now I understand Thee. How could I ever take seriously a Power that sat on high playing with Sin and Grace—but now I see Thee, not the bloodthirsty Jehovah, but a golden-haired youth, the Light itself. We two worship Thee; not with a wail of prayer, but with a great anthem, that has the World-All in it. All our powers, our knowledge, our dreams—all are there. And each has its own instrument, its own voice in the mighty chorus. The dawn reddening over the hills is with us. The goat grazing on that northern hillside, dazzled with sun-gold when it turns its head to the east—it is with us, too. The waking birds are with us. A frog, crawling up out of a puddle and stopping to wonder at the morning—it is there. Even the little insect with diamonds on its wings—and the grass-blade with its pearl of dew, trying to mirror as much of the sky as it can—it is there, it is there, it is there. We are standing amid Love's first day, and there is no more talk of grace or doubt or faith or need of aid; only a rushing sound of music rising to heaven from all the golden rivers in our hearts.

The saeters were beginning to wake. Musical cries came echoing as the saeter-girls chid on the cattle, that moved slowly up to the northern heights, with lowings and tinkling of bells. But Peer lay still where he was—and presently the dairy-maid at the saeter caught sight of what seemed an empty boat drifting on the lake, and was afraid some accident had happened.

"Merle," thought Peer, still lying motionless. "Is your name Merle?"

The dairy-maid was down by the waterside now, calling across toward the boat. And at last she saw a man sit up, rubbing his eyes.

"Mercy on us!" she cried. "Lord be thanked that you're there. And you haven't been in the whole blessed night!"

A goat with a broken leg, set in splints, had been left to stray at will about the cattle-pens and in and out of the house, while its leg-bones were setting. Peer must needs pick up the creature and carry it round for a while in his arms, though it at once began chewing at his beard. When he sat down to the breakfast-table, he found something so touching in the look of the cream and butter, the bread and the coffee, that it seemed a man would need a heart of stone to be willing to eat such things. And when the old woman said he really ought to get some food into him, he sprang up and embraced her, as far as his arms would go round. "Nice carryings on!" she cried, struggling to free herself. But when he went so far as to imprint a sounding kiss on her forehead, she fetched him a mighty push. "Lord!" she said, "if the gomeril hasn't gone clean out of his wits this last night!"



Chapter IV

Ringeby lay on the shore of a great lake; and was one of those busy commercial towns which have sprung up in the last fifty years from a nucleus consisting of a saw-mill and a flour-mill by the side of a waterfall. Now quite a number of modern factories had spread upwards along the river, and the place was a town with some four thousand inhabitants, with a church of its own, a monster of a school building, and numbers of yellow workmen's dwellings scattered about at random in every direction. Otherwise Ringeby was much like any other little town. There were two lawyers, who fought for scraps of legal business, and the editors of two local papers, who were constantly at loggerheads before the Conciliation Board. There was a temperance lodge and Workers' Union and a chapel and a picture palace. And every Sunday afternoon the good citizens of Ringeby walked out along the fjord, with their wives on their arms. On these occasions most of the men wore frock coats and grey felt hats; but Enebak, the tanner, being hunchbacked, preferred a tall silk hat, as better suited to eke out his height.

On Saturday evenings, when twilight began to fall, the younger men would meet at the corner outside Hammer's store, to discuss the events of the week.

"Have you heard the latest news?" asked Lovli, the bank cashier, of his friend the telegraphist, who came up.

"News? Do you tell me that there's ever any news in this accursed hole?"

"Merle Uthoug has come back from the mountains—engaged to be married."

"The devil she is! What does the old man say to that?"

"Oh, well, the old man will want an engineer if he's to get the new timber-mills into his clutches."

"Is the man an engineer?"

"From Egypt. A Muhammadan, I daresay. Brown as a coffee-berry, and rolling in money."

"Do you hear that, Froken Bull? Stop a minute, here's some news for you."

The girl addressed turned aside and joined them. "Oh, the same piece of news that's all over the town, I suppose. Well, I can tell you, he's most tremendously nice."

"Sh!" whispered the telegraphist. Peer Holm was just coming out of the Grand Hotel, dressed in a grey suit, and with a dark coat over his arm. He was trying to get a newly-lit cigar to draw, as he walked with a light elastic step past the group at the corner. A little farther up the street he encountered Merle, and took her arm, and the two walked off together, the young people at the corner watching them as they went.

"And when is it to be?" asked the telegraphist.

"He wanted to be married immediately, I believe," said Froken Bull, "but I suppose they'll have to wait till the banns are called, like other people."

Lorentz D. Uthoug's long, yellow-painted wooden house stood facing the market square; the office and the big ironmonger's shop were on the ground floor, and the family lived in the upper storeys. "That's where he lives," people would say. Or "There he goes," as the broad, grey-bearded man passed down the street. Was he such a big man, then? He could hardly be called really rich, though he had a saw-mill and a machine-shop and a flour-mill, and owned a country place some way out of the town. But there was something of the chieftain, something of the prophet, about him. He hated priests. He read deep philosophical works, forbade his family to go to church, and had been visited by Bjornson himself. It was good to have him on your side; to have him against you was fatal—you might just as well clear out of the town altogether. He had a finger in everything that went on; it was as if he owned the whole town. He had been known to meet a youth he had never spoken to before in the street and accost him with a peremptory "Understand me, young man; you will marry that girl." Yet for all this, Lorentz Uthoug was not altogether content. True, he was head and shoulders above all the Ringeby folks, but what he really wanted was to be the biggest man in a place a hundred times as large.

And now that he had found a son-in-law, he seemed as it were to be walking quietly round this stranger from the great world, taking his measure, and asking in his thoughts: "Who are you at bottom? What have you seen? What have you read? Are you progressive or reactionary? Have you any proper respect for what I have accomplished here, or are you going about laughing in your sleeve and calling me a whale among the minnows?"

Every morning when Peer woke in his room at the hotel he rubbed his eyes. On the table beside his bed stood a photograph of a young girl. What? Is it really you, Peer, that have found someone to stand close to you at last? Someone in the world who cares about you. When you have a cold, there'll be people to come round and be anxious about you, and ask how you are getting on. And this to happen to you!

He dined at the Uthougs' every day, and there were always flowers beside his plate. Often there would be some little surprise—a silver spoon or fork, or a napkin-ring with his initials on. It was like gathering the first straws to make his new nest. And the pale woman with the spectacles looked kindly at him, as if to say: "You are taking her from me, but I forgive you."

One day he was sitting in the hotel, reading, when Merle came in.

"Will you come for a walk?" she asked.

"Good idea. Where shall we go to-day?"

"Well, we haven't been to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth yet. We really ought to go, you know. I'll take you there to-day."

Peer found these ceremonial visits to his new relatives quite amusing; he went round, as it were, collecting uncles and aunts. And to-day there was a new one. Well, why not?

"But—my dear girl, have you been crying?" he asked suddenly, taking her head in his hands.

"Oh, it's nothing. Come—let's go now." And she thrust him gently away as he tried to kiss her. But the next moment she dropped into a chair, and sat looking thoughtfully at him through half-closed eyes, nodding her head very slightly. She seemed to be asking herself: "Who is this man? What is this I am taking on me? A fortnight ago he was an utter stranger—"

She passed her hand across her brow. "It's mother—you know," she said.

"Is anything special wrong to-day?"

"She's so afraid you're going to carry me off into the wide world at a moment's notice."

"But I've told her we're going to live here for the present."

The girl drew up one side of her mouth in a smile, and her eyelids almost closed. "And what about me, then? After living here all these years crazy to get out into the world?"

"And I, who am crazy to stay at home!" said Peer with a laugh. "How delicious it will be to have a house and a family at last—and peace and quiet!"

"But what about me?"

"You'll be there, too. I'll let you live with me."

"Oh! how stupid you are to-day. If you only knew what it means, to throw away the best years of one's youth in a hole like this! And besides—I could have done something worth while in music—"

"Why, then, let's go abroad, by all means," said Peer, wrinkling up his forehead as if to laugh.

"Oh, nonsense! you know it's quite impossible to go off and leave mother now. But you certainly came at a very critical time. For anyway I was longing and longing just then for someone to come and carry me off."

"Aha! so I was only a sort of ticket for the tour." He stepped over and pinched her nose.

"Oh! you'd better be careful. I haven't really promised yet to have you, you know."

"Haven't promised? When you practically asked me yourself."

She clapped her hands together. "Why, what shameless impudence! After my saying No, No, No, for days together. I won't, I won't, I won't—I said it ever so many times. And you said it didn't matter—for YOU WOULD. Yes, you took me most unfairly off my guard; but now look out for yourself."

The next moment she flung her arms round his neck. But when he tried to kiss her, she pushed him away again. "No," she said, "you mustn't think I did it for that!"

Soon they were walking arm-in-arm along the country road, on their way to Aunt Marit at Bruseth. It was September, and all about the wooded hills stood yellow, and the cornfields were golden and the rowan berries blood-red. But there was still summer in the air.

"Ugh! how impossibly fast you walk," exclaimed Merle, stopping out of breath.

And when they came to a gate they sat down in the grass by the wayside. Below them was the town, with its many roofs and chimneys standing out against the shining lake, that lay framed in broad stretches of farm and field.

"Do you know how it came about that mother is—as she is?" asked Merle suddenly.

"No. I didn't like to ask you about it."

She drew a stalk of grass between her lips.

"Well, you see—mother's father was a clergyman. And when—when father forbade her to go to church, she obeyed him. But she couldn't sleep after that. She felt—as if she had sold her soul."

"And what did your father say to that?"

"Said it was hysteria. But, hysteria or not, mother couldn't sleep. And at last they had to take her away to a home."

"Poor soul!" said Peer, taking the girl's hand.

"And when she came back from there she was so changed, one would hardly have known her. And father gave way a little—more than he ever used to do—and said: 'Well, well, I suppose you must go to church if you wish, but you mustn't mind if I don't go with you.' And so one Sunday she took my hand and we went together, but as we reached the church door, and heard the organ playing inside, she turned back. 'No—it's too late now,' she said. 'It's too late, Merle.' And she has never been since."

"And she has always been—strange—since then?"

Merle sighed. "The worst of it is she sees so many evil things compassing her about. She says the only thing to do is to laugh them away. But she can't laugh herself. And so I have to. But when I go away from her—oh! I can't bear to think of it."

She hid her face against his shoulder, and he began stroking her hair.

"Tell me, Peer"—she looked up with her one-sided smile—"who is right—mother or father?"

"Have you been trying to puzzle that out?"

"Yes. But it's so hopeless—so impossible to come to any sort of certainty. What do you think? Tell me what you think, Peer."

They sat there alone in the golden autumn day, her head pressed against his shoulder. Why should he play the superior person and try to put her off with vague phrases?

"Dear Merle, I know, of course, no more than you do. There was a time when I saw God standing with a rod in one hand and a sugar-cake in the other—just punishment and rewards to all eternity. Then I thrust Him from me, because He seemed to me so unjust—and at last He vanished, melting into the solar systems on high, and all the infinitesimal growths here on the earth below. What was my life, what were my dreams, my joy or sorrow, to these? Where was I making for? Ever and always there was something in me saying: He IS! But where? Somewhere beyond and behind the things you know—it is there He is. And so I determined to know more things, more and more and more—and what wiser was I? A steam-hammer crushes my skull one day—and what has become of my part in progress and culture and science? Am I as much of an accident as a fly on an ant? Do I mean no more? Do I vanish and leave as little trace? Answer me that, little Merle—what do YOU think?"

The girl sat motionless, breathing softly, with closed eyes. Then she began to smile—and her lips were full and red, and at last they shaped themselves to a kiss.

Bruseth was a large farm lying high above the town, with its garden and avenues and long verandahs round the white dwelling-house. And what a view out over the lake and the country far around! The two stood for a moment at the gate, looking back.

Merle's aunt—her father's sister—was a widow, rich and a notable manager, but capricious to a degree, capable of being generous one day and grasping the next. It was the sorrow of her life that she had no children of her own, but she had not yet decided who was to be her heir.

She came sailing into the room where the two young people were waiting, and Peer saw her coming towards them, a tall, full-bosomed woman with grey hair and florid colour. Oho! here's an aunt for you with a vengeance, he thought. She pulled off a blue apron she was wearing and appeared dressed in a black woollen gown, with a gold chain about her neck and long gold earrings.

"So you thought you'd come over at last," she said. "Actually remembered my existence, after all, did you, Merle?" She turned towards Peer, and stood examining him, with her hands on her hips. "So that's what you look like, is it, Peer? And you're the man that was to catch Merle? Well, you see I call you Peer at once, even though you HAVE come all the way from—Arabia, is it? Sit down, sit down."

Wine was brought in, and Aunt Marit of Bruseth lifted a congratulatory glass toward the pair with the following words:

"You'll fight, of course. But don't overdo it, that's all. And mark my words, Peer Holm, if you aren't good to her, I'll come round one fine day and warm your ears for you. Your healths, children!"

The two went homewards arm-in-arm, dancing down the hillsides, and singing gaily as they went. But suddenly, when they were still some way from the town, Merle stopped and pointed. "There," she whispered—"there's mother!"

A solitary woman was walking slowly in the twilight over a wide field of stubble, looking around her. It was as if she were lingering here to search out the meaning of something—of many things. From time to time she would glance up at the sky, or at the town below, or at people passing on the road, and then she would nod her head. How infinitely far off she seemed, how utterly a stranger to all the noisy doings of men! What was she seeing now? What were her thoughts?

"Let us go on," whispered Merle, drawing him with her. And the young girl suddenly began to sing, loudly, as if in an overflow of spirits; and Peer guessed that it was for her mother's sake. Perhaps the lonely woman stood there now in the twilight smiling after them.

One Sunday morning Merle drove up to the hotel in a light cart with a big brown horse; Peer came out and climbed in, leaving the reins to her. They were going out along the fjord to look at her father's big estate which in olden days had been the County Governors' official residence.

It is the end of September. The sun is still warm, but the waters of the lake are grey and all the fields are reaped. Here and there a strip of yellowing potato-stalks lies waiting to be dug up. Up on the hillsides horses tethered for grazing stand nodding their heads slowly, as if they knew that it was Sunday. And a faint mist left by the damps of the night floats about here and there over the broad landscape.

They passed through a wood, and came on the other side to an avenue of old ash trees, that turned up from the road and ran uphill to a big house where a flag was flying. The great white dwelling-house stood high, as if to look out far over the world; the red farm-buildings enclosed the wide courtyard on three sides, and below were gardens and broad lands, sloping down towards the lake. Something like an estate!

"What's the name of that place?" cried Peer, gazing at it.

"Loreng."

"And who owns it?"

"Don't know," answered the girl, cracking her whip.

Next moment the horse turned in to the avenue, and Peer caught involuntarily at the reins. "Hei! Brownie—where are you going?" he cried.

"Why not go up and have a look?" said Merle.

"But we were going out to look at your father's place."

"Well, that is father's place."

Peer stared at her face and let go the reins. "What? What? You don't mean to say your father owns that place there?"

A few minutes later they were strolling through the great, low-ceiled rooms. The whole house was empty now, the farm-bailiff living in the servants' quarters. Peer grew more and more enthusiastic. Here, in these great rooms, there had been festive gatherings enough in the days of the old Governors, where cavaliers in uniform or with elegant shirt-frills and golden spurs had kissed the hands of ladies in sweeping silk robes. Old mahogany, pot-pourri, convivial song, wit, grace—Peer saw it all in his mind's eye, and again and again he had to give vent to his feelings by seizing Merle and embracing her.

"Oh, but look here, Merle—you know, this is a fairy-tale."

They passed out into the old neglected garden with its grass-grown paths and well-filled carp-ponds and tumble-down pavilions. Peer rushed about it in all directions. Here, too, there had been fetes, with coloured lamps festooned around, and couples whispering in the shade of every bush. "Merle, did you say your father was going to sell all this to the State?"

"Yes, that's what it will come to, I expect," she answered. "The place doesn't pay, he says, when he can't live here himself to look after it."

"But what use can the State make of it?"

"Oh, a Home for Imbeciles, I believe."

"Good Lord! I might have guessed it! An idiot asylum—to be sure." He tramped about, fairly jumping with excitement. "Merle, look here—will you come and live here?"

She threw back her head and looked at him. "I ask you, Merle. Will you come and live here?"

"Do you want me to answer this moment, on the spot?"

"Yes. For I want to buy it this moment, on the spot."

"Well, aren't you—"

"Look, Merle, just look at it all. That long balcony there, with the doric columns—nothing shoddy about that—it's the real thing. Empire. I know something about it."

"But it'll cost a great deal, Peer." There was some reluctance in her voice. Was she thinking of her violin? Was she loth to take root too firmly?

"A great deal?" he said. "What did your father give for it?"

"The place was sold by auction, and he got it cheap. Fifty thousand crowns, I think it was."

Peer strode off towards the house again. "We'll buy it. It's the very place to make into a home. . . . Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, cottars—ah! it'll be grand."

Merle followed him more slowly. "But, Peer, remember you've just taken over father's machine-shops in town."

"Pooh!" said Peer scornfully. "Do you think I can't manage to run that village smithy and live here too! Come along, Merle." And he took her hand and drew her into the house again.

It was useless to try to resist. He dragged her from room to room, furnishing as he went along. "This room here is the dining-room—and that's the big reception-room; this will be the study—that's a boudoir for you. . . . Come now; to-morrow we'll go into Christiania and buy the furniture."

Merle gasped for breath. He had got so far by this time that the furnishing was complete and they were installed. They had a governess already, and he was giving parties too. Here was the ballroom. He slipped an arm round her waist and danced round the room with her, till she was carried away by his enthusiasm, and stood flushed and beaming, while all she had dreamed of finding some day out in the wide world seemed suddenly to unfold around her here in these empty rooms. Was this really to be her home? She stopped to take breath and to look around her.

Late that evening Peer sat at the hotel with a note-book, working the thing out. He had bought Loreng; his father-in-law had been reasonable, and had let him have the place, lands and woods and all, for the ridiculous price he had paid himself. There was a mortgage of thirty thousand crowns on the estate. Well, that might stand as it was, for the bulk of Peer's money was tied up in Ferdinand Holm's company.

A few days after he carried Merle off to the capital, leaving the carpenters and painters hard at work at Loreng.

One day he was sitting alone at the hotel in Christiania—Merle was out shopping—when there was a very discreet knock at the door.

"Come in," called Peer. And in walked a middle-sized man, of thirty or more, dressed in a black frock-coat with a large-patterned vest, and his dark hair carefully combed over a bald patch on the crown. He had a red, cheery face; his eyes were of the brightest blue, and the whole man breathed and shone with good humour.

"I am Uthoug junior," said the new-comer, with a bow and a laugh.

"Oh—that's capital."

"Just come across from Manchester—beastly voyage. Thanks, thanks—I'll find a seat." He sat down, and flung one striped trouser-leg over the other.

Peer sent for some wine, and in half an hour the two were firm allies. Uthoug junior's life-story to date was quickly told. He had run away from home because his father had refused to let him go on the stage—had found on trial that in these days there weren't enough theatres to go round—then had set up in business for himself, and now had a general agency for the sale of English tweeds. "Freedom, freedom," was his idea; "lots of elbow-room—room to turn about in—without with your leave or by your leave to father or anyone! Your health!"

A week later the street outside Lorentz D. Uthoug's house in Ringeby was densely crowded with people, all gazing up at the long rows of lighted windows. There was feasting to-night in the great man's house. About midnight a carriage drove up to the door. "That's the bridegroom's," whispered a bystander. "He got those horses from Denmark!"

The street door opened, and a white figure, thickly cloaked, appeared on the steps. "The bride!" whispered the crowd. Then a slender man in a dark overcoat and silk hat. "The bridegroom!" And as the pair passed out, "Hip-hip-hip—" went the voice of the general agent for English tweeds, and the hurrahs came with a will.

The carriage moved off, and Peer sat, with his arm round his bride, driving his horses at a sharp trot out along the fjord. Out towards his home, towards his palace, towards a new and untried future.



Chapter V

A little shaggy, grey-bearded old man stood chopping and sawing in the wood-shed at Loreng. He had been there longer than anyone could remember. One master left, another took his place—what was that to the little man? Didn't the one need firewood—and didn't the other need firewood just the same? In the evening he crept up to his den in the loft of the servants' wing; at meal-times he sat himself down in the last seat at the kitchen-table, and it seemed to him that there was always food to be had. Nowadays the master's name was Holm—an engineer he was—and the little man blinked at him with his eyes, and went on chopping in the shed. If they came and told him he was not wanted and must go—why, thank heaven, he was stone deaf, as everyone knew. Thud, thud, went his axe in the shed; and the others about the place were so used to it that they heeded it no more than the ticking of a clock upon the wall.

In the kitchen of the big house two girls stood by the window peeping out into the garden and giggling.

"There he is again," said Laura. "Sh! don't laugh so loud. There! now he's stopping again!"

"He's whistling to a bird," said Oliana. "Or talking to himself perhaps. Do you think he's quite right in his head?"

"Sh! The mistress'll hear."

It was no less a person than the master of Loreng himself whose proceedings struck them as so comic.

Peer it was, wandering about in the great neglected garden, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers and his cap on the back of his head, stopping here and there, and moving on again as the fancy took him. Sometimes he would hum a snatch of a song, and again fall to whistling; here he would pick up a twig and look at it, or again it might be a bird, or perhaps an old neglected apple-tree that seemed worth stopping to talk to. The best of it was that these were his own lands and his own woods that lay there in the rusty October sunshine. Was all that nothing? And the hill over on the farther shore, standing on its head in the dark lake-mirror, clothed in a whole world of colour—yellow leaves and green leaves, and light red and dark red, and golden and blood-red patches, with the dark green of the pines between. His eyes had all this to rest on. Did he really live here? What abundant fruitfulness all around him! What a sky, so wide, so golden that it seemed to ring again. The potato-stalks lay uprooted, scattered on the fields; the corn was safely housed. And here he stood. He seemed again to be drawing in nourishment from all he saw, drinking it greedily. The empty places in his mind were filled; the sight of the rich soft landscape worked on his being, giving it something of its own abundant fruitfulness, its own wide repose.

And—what next?

"What next?" he mimicked in his thoughts, and started again tramping up and down the garden paths. What next—what next? Could he not afford now to take his time—to rest a little? Every man must have an end in view—must strive to reach this goal or that. And what was his object now? What was it he had so toiled for, from those hard years in the loft above the stable even until now? What was it? Often it seemed as if everything were going smoothly, going of itself; as if one day, surely, he would find his part in a great, happy world-harmony. But had he not already found it? What more would he have? Of course he had found it.

But is this all, then? What is there behind and beyond? Hush! have done with questioning. Look at the beauty around you. Here is peace, peace and rest.

He hurried up to the house, and in—it might help matters if he could take his wife in his arms; perhaps get her to come out with him a while.

Merle was in the pantry, with a big apron on, ranging jars of preserves on the shelves.

"Here, dearest little wife," cried Peer, throwing his arms about her, "what do you say to a little run?"

"Now? Do you suppose a housewife has nothing better to do than gad about? Uf! my hair! you'll make it come down."

Peer took her arm and led her over to a window looking out on the lake. "There, dearest! Isn't it lovely here?"

"Peer, you've asked me that twenty times a day ever since we came."

"Yes, and you never answer. And you've never once yet run and thrown your arms round my neck and said how happy you were. And it's never yet come to pass that you've given me a single kiss of your own accord."

"I should think not, when you steal such a lot." And she pushed him aside, and slipped under his arm, and ran out of the room. "I must go in and see mother again to-day," she said as she went.

"Huit! Of course!" He paced up and down the room, his step growing more and more impatient. "In to mother—in to mother! Always and everlastingly mother and mother and nothing else. Huit!" and he began to whistle.

Merle put her head in at the door. "Peer—have you such a terrible lot of spare time?"

"Well, yes and no. I'm busy enough looking about in every corner here for something or another. But I can't find it, and I don't even know exactly what it is. Oh well, yes—I have plenty of time to spare."

"But what about the farm?"

"Well, there's the dairy-woman in the cow-house, and the groom in the stables, and the bailiff to worry the tenants and workpeople. What am I to do—poke around making improvements?"

"But what about the machine-shop?"

"Don't I go in twice a day—cycle over to see how things are going? But with Rode for manager—that excellent and high-principled engineer—"

"Surely you could help him in some way?"

"He's got to go on running along the line of rails he's used to—nothing else for it, my darling. And four or five thousand crowns a year, net profit—why, it's magnificent!"

"But couldn't you extend the business?"

He raised his eyebrows, and his mouth pursed itself up.

"Extend—did you say extend? Extend a—a doll's house!"

"Oh, Peer, you shouldn't laugh at it—a thing that father took so much pains to set going!"

"And YOU shouldn't go worrying me to get to work again in earnest, Merle. You shouldn't really. One of these days I might discover that there's no way to be happy in the world but to drag a plough and look straight ahead and forget that there's anything else in existence. It may come to that one day—but give me a little breathing-space first, and you love me. Well, good-bye for a while."

Merle, busying herself again in her pantry, glanced out of the window and saw him disappear into the stables. At first she had gone with him when he wandered about like this, touching and feeling all his possessions. In the cattle-stalls, it might be, stroking and patting, getting himself covered with hairs, and chattering away in childish glee. "Look, Merle—this cow is mine, child! Dagros her name is—and she's mine. We have forty of them—and they're all mine. And that nag there—what a sight he is! We have eight of them. They're mine. Yours too, of course. But you don't care a bit about it. You haven't even hugged any of them yet. But when a man's been as poor as I've been—and suddenly wakened up one day and found he owned all this—No, wait a minute, Merle—come and kiss old Brownie." She knew the ritual now—he could go over it all again and again, and each time with the same happy wonder. Was it odious of her that she was beginning to find it a little comic? And how did it come about that often, when she might be filled with the deepest longing for him, and he burst in upon her boisterously, hungry for her caresses, she would grow suddenly cold, and put him aside? What was the matter? Why did she behave like this?

Perhaps it was because he was so much the stronger, so overwhelming in his effect on her that she had to keep a tight hold on herself to avoid being swept clean away and losing her identity. At one moment they might be sitting in the lamplight, chatting easily together, and so near in heart and mind; and the next it would be over—he would suddenly have started up and be pacing up and down the room, delivering a sort of lecture. Merle—isn't it marvellous, the spiritual life of plants? And then would come a torrent of talk about strange plant-growths in the north and in the south, plants whose names she had never even heard—their struggle for existence, their loves and longings, their heroism in disease, the divine marvel of their death. Their inventions, their wisdom, aye, their religious sense—is it not marvellous, Merle? From this it was only a step to the earth's strata, fossils, crystals—a fresh lecture. And finally he would sum up the whole into one great harmony of development, from the primary cell-life to the laws of gravitation that rule the courses of the stars. Was it not marvellous? One common rhythm beating through the universe—a symphony of worlds!—And then he must have a kiss!

But she could only draw back and put him gently aside. It was as if he came with all his stored-up knowledge—his lore of plants and fossils, crystals and stars—and poured it all out in a caress. She could almost have cried out for help. And after hurrying her through the wonders of the universe in this fashion, he would suddenly catch her up in his arms, and whirl her off in a passionate intoxication of the senses till she woke at last like a castaway on an island, hardly knowing where or what she was. She laughed, but she could have found it in her heart to weep. Could this be love? In this strong man, whose life till now had been all study and work, the stored-up feeling burst vehemently forth, now that it had found an outlet. But why did it leave her so cold?

When Peer came in from the stables, humming a tune, he found her in the sitting-room, dressed in a dark woollen dress with a red ribbon round her throat.

He stopped short: "By Jove—how that suits you, Merle!"

She let her eyes linger on him for a moment, and then came up and threw her arms round his neck.

"Did he have to go to the stables all alone today?"

"Yes; I've been having a chat with the young colt."

"Am I unkind to you, Peer?"

"You?—you!"

"Not even if I ask you to drive me in to see mother?"

"Why, that's the very thing. The new horse I bought yesterday from Captain Myhre should be here any minute—I'm just waiting for it."

"A new horse—to ride?"

"Yes. Hang it—I must get some riding. I had to handle Arab horses for years. But we'll try this one in the gig first."

Merle was still standing with her arms round his neck, and now she pressed her warm rich lips to his, close and closer. It was at such moments that she loved him—when he stood trembling with a joy unexpected, that took him unawares. She too trembled, with a blissful thrill through soul and body; for once and at last it was she who gave.

"Ah!" he breathed at last, pale with emotion. "I—I'd be glad to die like that."

A little later they stood on the balcony looking over the courtyard, when a bearded farm-hand came up with a big light-maned chestnut horse prancing in a halter. The beast stood still in the middle of the yard, flung up its head, and neighed, and the horses in the stable neighed in answer.

"Oh, what a beauty!" exclaimed Merle, clapping her hands.

"Put him into the gig," called Peer to the stable-boy who had come out to take the horse.

The man touched his cap. "Horse has never been driven before, sir, I was to say."

"Everything must have a beginning," said Peer.

Merle glanced at him. But they were both dressed to go out when the chestnut came dancing up before the door with the gig. The white hoofs pawed impatiently, the head was high in the air, and the eyes flashed fire—he wasn't used to having shafts pressing on his sides and wheels rumbling just behind him. Peer lit a cigar.

"You're not going to smoke?" Merle burst out.

"Just to show him I'm not excited," said Peer. No sooner had they taken their seats in the gig than the beast began to snort and rear, but the long lash flicked out over its neck, and a minute later they were tearing off in a cloud of dust towards the town.

Winter came—and a real winter it was. Peer moved about from one window to another, calling all the time to Merle to come and look. He had been away so long—the winter of Eastern Norway was all new to him. Look—look! A world of white—a frozen white tranquillity—woods, plains, lakes all in white, a fairy-tale in sunlight, a dreamland at night under the great bright moon. There was a ringing of sleigh-bells out on the lake, and up in the snow-powdered forest; the frost stood thick on the horses' manes and the men's beards were hung with icicles. And in the middle of the night loud reports of splitting ice would come from the lake—sounds to make one sit up in bed with a start.

Driving's worth while in weather like this—come, Merle. The new stallion from Gudbrandsdal wants breaking in—we'll take him. Hallo! and away they go in their furs, swinging out over the frozen lake, whirling on to the bare glassy ice, where they skid and come near capsizing, and Merle screams—but they get on to snow, and hoofs and runners grip again. None of your galloping—trot now, trot! And Peer cracks his whip. The black, long-maned Gudbrandsdaler lifts his head and trots out. And the evening comes, and under the wide and starry sky they dash up again to Loreng—Loreng that lies there lighting them home with its long rows of glowing windows. A glorious day, wife!

Or they would go out on ski over the hills to the woodmen's huts in the forest, and make a blazing fire in the big chimney and drink steaming coffee. Then home again through one of those pale winter evenings with a violet twilight over woods and fields and lake, over white snow and blue. Far away on the brown hillside in the west stands a farmhouse, with all its windows flaming with the reflection from a golden cloud. Here they come rushing, the wind of their passing shaking the snow from the pines; on, on, over deep-rutted woodcutters' roads, over stumps and stones—falling, bruising themselves, burying their faces deep in the snow, but dragging themselves up again, smiling to each other and rushing on again. Then, reaching home red and dripping, they lean the ski up against the wall, and stamp the snow off their boots.

"Merle," said Peer, picking the ice from his beard, "we must have a bottle of Burgundy at dinner to-night."

"Yes—and shall we ring up and ask someone to come over?"

"Someone—from outside? Can't we two have a little jollification all to ourselves?"

"Yes, yes, of course, if you like."

A shower-bath—a change of underclothes—how delicious! And—an idea! He'll appear at dinner in evening dress, just for a surprise. But as he entered the room he stopped short. For there stood Merle herself in evening dress—a dress of dark red velvet, with his locket round her neck and the big plaits of hair rolled into a generous knot low on her neck. Flowers on the table—the wine set to warm—the finest glass, the best silver—ptarmigan—how splendid! They lift their glasses filled with the red wine and drink to each other.

The frozen winter landscape still lingered in their thoughts, but the sun had warmed their souls; they laughed and jested, held each other's hands long, and sat smiling at each other in long silences.

"A glorious day to-day, Merle. And to-morrow we die."

"What do you say!—to-morrow!"

"Or fifty years hence. It comes to the same thing." He pressed her hand and his eyes half closed.

"But this evening we're together—and what could we want more?"

Then he fell to talking of his Egyptian experiences. He had once spent a month's holiday in visiting ruined cities with Maspero, the great Maspero himself, going with him to Luxor, to Karnak, with its great avenues of sphinxes, to El Amarna and Shubra. They had looked on ancient cities of temples and king's mausoleums, where men thousands of years dead lay as if lost in thought, with eyes wide open, ready at any moment to rise and call out: Slave, is the bath ready? There in the middle of a cornfield rises an obelisk. You ask what it is—it is all that is left of a royal city. There, too, a hundred thousand years ago maybe, young couples have sat together, drinking to each other in wine, revelling in all the delights of love—and where are they now? Aye, where are they, can you tell me?

"When that journey was over, Merle, I began to think that it was not mere slime of the Nile that fertilised the fields; it was the mouldered bodies of the dead. I rode over dust that had been human fingers, lips that had clung in kisses. Millions and millions of men and women have lived on those river-banks, and what has become of them now? Geology. And I thought of the millions of prayers wailed out there to the sun and stars, to stone idols in the temples, to crocodiles and snakes and the river itself, the sacred river. And the air, Merle—the air received them, and vibrated for a second—and that was all. And even so our prayers go up, to this very day. We press our warm lips to a cold stone, and think to leave an impression. Skaal!"

But Merle did not touch her glass; she sat still, with her eyes on the yellow lampshade. She had not yet given up all her dreams of going forth and conquering the world with her music—and he sat there rolling out eternity itself before her, while he and she herself, her parents, all, all became as chaff blown before the wind and vanished.

"What, won't you drink with me? Well, well—then I must pledge you by myself. Skaal!"

And being well started on his travellers' tales he went on with them, but now in a more cheerful vein, so that she found it possible to smile. He told of the great lake-swamps, with their legions of birds, ibis, pelicans, swans, flamingos, herons, and storks—a world of long beaks and curved breasts and stilt-like legs and shrieking and beating of wings. Most wonderful of all it was to stand and watch and be left behind when the birds of passage flew northward in their thousands in the spring. My love to Norway, he would say, as they passed. And in the autumn to see them return, grey goose, starling, wagtail, and all the rest. "How goes it now at home?" he would think—and "Next time I'll go with you," he would promise himself year after year.

"And here I am at last! Skaal!"

"Welcome home," said Merle, lifting her glass with a smile.

He rang the bell. "What do you want?" her eyes asked.

"Champagne," said Peer to the maid, who appeared and vanished again.

"Are you crazy, Peer?"

He leaned back, flushed and in happy mood, lit a cigarette and told of his greatest triumph out there; it was after he had finished his work at the cataracts, and had started again with a branch of the English firm in Alexandria. One morning in walked the Chief and said: "Now, gentlemen, here's a chance for a man that has the stuff in him to win his spurs—who's ready?" And half a score of voices answered "I." "Well, here's the King of Abyssinia suddenly finds he must be in the fashion and have a railway—couple of hundred miles of it—what do you say to that?" "Splendid," we cried in chorus. "Well, but we've got to compete with Germans, and Swiss, and Americans—and we've got to win." "Of course"—a louder chorus still. "Now, I'm going to take two men and give them a free hand. They'll go up there and survey and lay out lines, and work out the whole project thoroughly, both from the technical and the financial side—and a project that's better and cheaper than the opposition ones. Eight months' work for a good man, but I must have it done in four. Take along assistants and equipment—all you need—and a thousand pounds premium to the man who puts it through so that we get the job."

"Peer—were you sent?" Merle half rose from her seat in her excitement.

"I—and one other."

"Who was that?"

"His name was Ferdinand Holm."

Merle smiled her one-sided smile, and looked at him through her long lashes. She knew it had been the dream of his life to beat that half-brother of his in fair fight. And now!

"And what came of it?" she asked, with a seeming careless glance at the lamp.

Peer flung away his cigarette. "First an expedition up the Nile, then a caravan journey, camels and mules and assistants and provisions and instruments and tents and quinine—heaps of quinine. Have you any idea, I wonder, what a job like that means? The line was to run through forests and tunnels, over swamps and torrents and chasms, and everything had to be planned and estimated at top speed—material, labour, time, cost and all. It was all very well to provide for the proper spans and girders for a viaduct, and estimate for thoroughly sound work in casting and erecting—but even then it would be no good if the Germans could come along and say their bridge looked handsomer than ours. It was a job that would take a good man eight months, and I had to get it done in four. There are just twelve hours in a day, it's true—but then there are twelve more hours in the night. Fever? Well, yes. And sunstroke—yes, both men and beasts went down with that. Maps got washed out by the rain. I lost my best assistant by snakebite. But such things didn't count as hindrances, they couldn't be allowed to delay the work. If I lost a man, it simply meant so much more work for me. After a couple of months a blacksmith's hammer started thumping in the back of my head, and when I closed my eyes for a couple of hours at night, little fiery snakes went wriggling about in my brain. Tired out? When I looked in the glass, my eyes were just two red balls in my head. But when the four months were up, I was back in the Chief's office."

"And—and Ferdinand Holm?"

"Had got in the day before."

Merle shifted a little in her seat. "And so—he won?"

Peer lit another cigarette. "No," he said—the cigarette seemed to draw rather badly—"I won. And that's how I came to be building railways in Abyssinia."

"Here's the champagne," said Merle. And as the wine foamed in the glasses, she rose and drank to him. She said nothing, only looked at him with eyes half veiled, and smiled. But a wave of fire went through him from head to foot.

"I feel like playing to-night," she said.

It was rarely that she played, though he had often begged her to. Since they had been married she had seemed loth to touch her violin, feeling perhaps some vague fear that it would disturb her peace and awaken old longings.

Peer sat on the sofa, leaning forward with his head in his hands, listening. And there she stood, at the music-stand, in her red dress, flushed and warm, and shining in the yellow lamplight, playing.

Then suddenly the thought of her mother came to her, and she went to the telephone. "Mother—are you there, mother? Oh, we've had such a glorious day." And the girl ran on, as if trying to light up her mother's heart with some rays of the happiness her own happy day had brought her.

A little later Peer lay in bed, while Merle flitted about the room, lingering over her toilet.

He watched her as she stood in her long white gown before the toilet-table with the little green-shaded lamps, doing her hair for the night in a long plait. Neither of them spoke. He could see her face in the glass, and saw that her eyes were watching him, with a soft, mysterious glance—the scent of her hair seemed to fill the place with youth.

She turned round towards him and smiled. And he lay still, beckoning her towards him with shining eyes. All that had passed that evening—their outing, and the homeward journey in the violet dusk, their little feast, and his story, the wine—all had turned to love in their hearts, and shone out now in their smile.

It may be that some touch of the cold breath of the eternities was still in their minds, the remembrance of the millions on millions that die, the flight of the aeons towards endless darkness; yet in spite of all, the minutes now to come, their warm embrace, held a whole world of bliss, that out-weighed all, and made Peer, as he lay there, long to send out a hymn of praise into the universe, because it was so wonderful to live.

He began to understand why she lingered and took so long. It was a sign that she wanted to surprise him, that her heart was kind. And her light breathing seemed even now to fill the room with love.

Outside in the night the lake-ice, splitting into new crevices, sent up loud reports; and the winter sky above the roof that sheltered them was lit with all its stars.



Chapter VI

For the next few years Peer managed his estate and his workshop, without giving too much of his time to either. He had his bailiff and his works-manager, and the work went on well enough in its accustomed grooves. If anyone had asked him what he actually did himself all the time, he would have found it hard to answer. He seemed to be going round gathering up something not clearly defined. There was something wanting—something missed that now had to be made good. It was not knowledge now, but life—life in his native land, the life of youth, that he reached out to grasp. The youth in him, that had never had free play in the years of early manhood, lay still dammed up, and had to find an outlet.

There were festive gatherings at Loreng. Long rows of sleighs drove in the winter evenings up from the town and back again. Tables were spread and decked with glass and flowers, the rooms were brightly lit, and the wine was good. And sometimes in the long moonlit nights respectable citizens would be awakened by noisy mirth in the streets of the little town, and, going to the window in their night-shirts, would see sleighs come galloping down, with a jangle of bells, full of laughing, singing young people, returning from some excursion far up in the hills, where there had been feasting and dancing. Here a young lawyer—newly married and something of a privileged buffoon—was sitting on the lap of somebody else's wife, playing a concertina, and singing at the top of his voice. "Some of that Loreng man's doings again," people would say. "The place has never been the same since he came here." And they would get back to bed again, shaking their heads and wondering what things were coming to.

Peer drove out, too, on occasion, to parties at the big country houses round, where they would play cards all night and have champagne sent up to their rooms next morning, the hosts being men who knew how to do things in style. This was glorious. Not mathematics or religion any more—what he needed now was to assimilate something of the country life of his native land. He was not going to be a stranger in his own country. He wanted to take firm root and be able to feel, like others, that he had a spot in the world where he was at home.

Then came the sunny day in June when he stood by Merle's bed, and she lay there smiling faintly her one-sided smile, with a newborn girl on her arm.

"What are we to call her, Peer?"

"Why, we settled that long ago. After your mother, of course."

"Of course her name's to be Louise," said Merle, turning the tiny red face towards her breast.

This came as a fresh surprise. She had been planning it for weeks perhaps, and now it took him unawares like one of her spontaneous caresses, but this time a caress to his inmost soul.

He made a faint attempt at a joke. "Oh well, I never have any say in my own house. I suppose you must have it your own way." He stroked her forehead; and when she saw how deeply moved he was, she smiled up at him with her most radiant smile.

On one of the first days of the hay-harvest, Peer lay out on a sunny hillside with his head resting on a haycock, watching his people at work. The mowing machine was buzzing down by the lake, the spreader at work on the hill-slopes, the horses straining in front, the men sitting behind driving. The whole landscape lay around him breathing summer and fruitfulness. And he himself lay there sunk in his own restful quiet.

A woman in a light dress and a yellow straw hat came down the field road, pushing a child's cart before her. It was Merle, and Merle was looking round her, and humming as she came. Since the birth of her child her mind was at peace; it was clear that she was scarcely dreaming now of conquering the world with her music—there was a tiny being in the little cart that claimed all her dreams. Never before had her skin been so dazzling, her smile so red; it was as if her youth now first blossomed out in all its fullness; her eyes seemed opened wide in a dear surprise.

After a while Peer went down and drove the mowing machine himself. He felt as if he must get to work somehow or other to provide for his wife and child.

But suddenly he stopped, got down, and began to walk round the machine and examine it closely. His face was all alert now, his eyes keen and piercing. He stared at the mechanism of the blades, and stood awhile thinking.

What was this? A happy idea was beginning to work in his mind. Vague only as yet—there was still time to thrust it aside. Should he?

Warm mild days and luminous nights. Sometimes he could not sleep for thinking how delicious it was to lie awake and see the sun come up.

On one such night he got up and dressed. A few minutes later there was a trampling of hoofs in the stable-yard and the chestnut stallion appeared, with Peer leading him. He swung himself into the saddle, and trotted off down the road, a white figure in his drill suit and cork helmet.

Where was he going? Nowhere. It was a change, to be up at an unusual hour and see the day break on a July morning.

He trotted along at an easy pace, rising lightly in the stirrups, and enjoying the pleasant warmth the rider feels. All was quiet around him, the homesteads still asleep. The sky was a pearly white, with here and there a few golden clouds, reflected in the lake below. And the broad meadows still spread their many-coloured flower-carpet abroad; there was a scent in the air of leaf and meadow-grass and pine, he drew in deep breaths of it and could have sung aloud.

He turned into the by-road up the hill, dismounting now and again to open a gate; past farms and little cottages, ever higher and higher, till at last he reached the topmost ridge, and halted in a clearing. The chestnut threw up his head and sniffed the air; horse and rider were wet with the dew-drip from the trees, that were now just flushing in the first glow of the coming sun. Far below was the lake, reflecting sky and hills and farmsteads, all asleep. And there in the east were the red flames—the sun—the day.

The horse pawed impatiently at the ground, eager to go on, but Peer held him back. He sat there gazing under the brim of his helmet at the sunrise, and felt a wave of strange feeling passing through his mind.

It seemed to him impossible that he should ever reach a higher pitch of sheer delight in life. He was still young and strong; all the organs of his body worked together in happy harmony. No cares to weigh upon his mind, no crushing responsibilities; the future lying calm and clear in the light of day, free from dizzy dreams. His hunger after knowledge was appeased; he felt that what he had learned and seen and gathered was beginning to take living organic form in his mind.

But then—what then?

The great human type of which you dreamed—have you succeeded in giving it life in yourself?

You know what is common knowledge about the progress of humanity; its struggle towards higher forms, its gropings up by many ways toward the infinite which it calls God.

You know something of the life of plants; the nest of a bird is a mystery before which you could kneel in worship. A rock shows you the marks of a glacier that scraped over it thousands of years ago, and looking on it you have a glimpse of the gigantic workings of the solar system. And on autumn evenings you look up at the stars, and the light and the death and the dizzy abysses of space above you send a solemn thrill through your soul.

And this has become a part of yourself. The joy of life for you is to grasp all you can compass of the universe, and let it permeate your thought and sense on every side.

But what then? Is this enough? Is it enough to rest thus in yourself?

Have you as yet raised one stepping-stone upon which other men can climb and say: Now we can see farther than before?

What is your inner being worth, unless it be mirrored in action?

If the world one day came to be peopled with none but supermen—what profit in that, as long as they must die?

What is your faith?

Ah, this sense of exile, of religious homelessness! How many times have you and Merle lain clasping each other's hands, your thoughts wandering together hand in hand, seeking over earth or among the stars for some being to whom you might send up a prayer; no slavish begging cry for grace and favour, but a jubilant thanksgiving for the gift of life.

But where was He?

He is not. And yet—He is.

But the ascetic on the cross is a God for the sick and aged. What of us others? When shall the modern man, strong, scientifically schooled, find a temple for the sacred music, the anthem of eternity in his soul?

The sun rose up from behind a distant hill-crest, scattering gold over the million spires of the pine-forest. Peer bent forward, with red-gleaming dewdrops on his hand and his white sleeve, and patted the neck of his restless beast.

It was two o'clock. The fires of morning were lit in the clouds and in all the waters over the earth. The dew in the meadows and the pearls on the wings of butterflies began to glisten.

"Now then, Bijou!—now for home!"

And he dashed off down the grass-grown forest paths, the chestnut snorting as he galloped.



Chapter VII

"Hei, Merle; We're going to have distinguished visitors—where in the world have you got to!" Peer hurried through the rooms with an open telegram in his hand, and at last came upon his wife in the nursery. "Oh, is it here you are?"

"Yes—but you shout so, I could hear you all through the house. Who is it that's coming?"

"Ferdinand Holm and Klaus Brock. Coming to the christening after all. Great Caesar!—what do you say to that, Merle?"

Merle was pale, and her cheeks a little sunken. Two years more had passed, and she had her second child now on her knee—a little boy with big wondering eyes.

"How fine for you, Peer!" she said, and went on undressing the child.

"Yes; but isn't it splendid of them to set off and come all that way, just because I asked them? By Jove, we must look sharp and get the place smartened up a bit."

And sure enough the whole place was soon turned upside-down—cartloads of sand coming in for the garden walks and the courtyard, and painters hard at work repainting the houses. And poor Merle knew very well that there would be serious trouble if anything should be amiss with the entertainment indoors.

At last came the hot August day when the flags were hoisted in honour of the expected guests. Once more the hum of mowing machines and hay-rakes came from the hill-slopes, and the air was so still that the columns of smoke from the chimneys of the town rose straight into the air. Peer had risen early, to have a last look round, inspecting everything critically, from the summer dress Merle was to wear down to the horses in the stable, groomed till their coats shone again. Merle understood. He had been a fisher-boy beside the well-dressed son of the doctor, and something meaner yet in relation to the distinguished Holm family. And there was still so much of the boy in him that he wanted to show now at his very best.

A crowd of inquisitive idlers had gathered down on the steamboat landing when the boat swung in and lay by the pier. The pair of bays in the Loreng carriage stood tossing their heads and twitching and stamping as the flies tormented them; but at last they got their passengers and were given their heads, setting off with a wild bound or two that scattered those who had pressed too near. But in the carriage they could see the two strangers and the engineer, all three laughing and gesticulating, and talking all at once. And in a few moments they vanished in a cloud of dust, whirling away beside the calm waters of the fjord.

Some way behind them a cart followed, driven by one of the stable-boys from Loreng, and loaded with big brass-bound leather trunks and a huge chest, apparently of wood, but evidently containing something frightfully heavy.

Merle had finished dressing, and stood looking at herself in the glass. The light summer dress was pretty, she thought, and the red bows at neck and waist sat to her satisfaction. Then came the roll of wheels outside, and she went out to receive her guests.

"Here they are," cried Peer, jumping down. "This is Ferdinand Pasha, Governor-General of the new Kingdom of Sahara—and this is His Highness the Khedive's chief pipe-cleaner and body-eunuch."

A tall, stooping man with white hair and a clean-shaven, dried-up face advanced towards Merle. It was Ferdinand Holm. "How do you do, Madam?" he said, giving her a dry, bony hand.

"Why, this is quite a baronial seat you have here," he added, looking round and settling his pince-nez.

His companion was a round, plump gentleman, with a little black goatee beard and dark eyes that blinked continually. But his smile was full of mirth, and the grip of his hand felt true. So this was Klaus Brock.

Peer led his two friends in through the rooms, showing them the view from the various windows. Klaus broke into a laugh at last, and turned to Merle: "He's just the same as ever," he said—"a little stouter, to be sure—it's clear you've been treating him well, madam." And he bowed and kissed her hand.

There was hock and seltzer ready for them—this was Merle's idea, as suitable for a hot day—and when the two visitors had each drunk off a couple of glasses, with an: "Ah! delicious!", Peer came behind her, stroked her hand lightly and whispered, "Thanks, Merle—first-rate idea of yours."

"By the way," exclaimed Ferdinand Holm suddenly, "I must send off a telegram. May I use the telephone a moment?"

"There he goes—can't contain himself any longer!" burst out Klaus Brock with a laugh. "He's had the telegraph wires going hard all the way across Europe—but you might let us get inside and sit down before you begin again here."

"Come along," said Peer. "Here's the telephone."

When the two had left the room, Klaus turned to Merle with a smile. "Well, well—so I'm really in the presence of Peer's wife—his wife in flesh and blood. And this is what she looks like! That fellow always had all the luck." And he took her hand again and kissed it. Merle drew it away and blushed.

"You are not married, then, Mr. Brock?"

"I? Well, yes and no. I did marry a Greek girl once, but she ran away. Just my luck." And he blinked his eyes and sighed with an expression so comically sad that Merle burst out laughing.

"And your friend, Ferdinand Holm?" she asked.

"He, dear lady—he—why, saving your presence, I have an idea there's a select little harem attached to that palace of his."

Merle turned towards the window and shook her head with a smile.

An hour later the visitors came down from their rooms after a wash and a change of clothes, and after a light luncheon Peer carried them off to show them round the place. He had added a number of new buildings, and had broken new land. The farm had forty cows when he came, now he had over sixty. "Of course, all this is a mere nothing for fellows like you, who bring your harvest home in railway trains," he said. "But, you see, I have my home here." And he waved his hand towards the house and the farmstead round.

Later they drove over in the light trap to look at the workshop, and here he made no excuses for its being small. He showed off the little foundry as if it had been a world-famous seat of industry, and maintained his serious air while his companions glanced sideways at him, trying hard not to smile.

The workmen touched their caps respectfully, and sent curious glances at the strangers.

"Quite a treat to see things on the Norwegian scale again," Ferdinand Holm couldn't resist saying at last.

"Yes, isn't it charming!" cried Peer, putting on an air of ingenuous delight. "This is just the size a foundry should be, if its owner is to have a good time and possess his soul in peace."

Ferdinand Holm and Brock exchanged glances. But next moment Peer led them through into a side-room, with tools and machinery evidently having no connection with the rest.

"Now look out," said Klaus. "This is the holy of holies, you'll see. He's hard at it working out some new devilry here, or I'm a Dutchman."

Peer drew aside a couple of tarpaulins, and showed them a mowing machine of the ordinary type, and beside it another, the model of a new type he had himself devised.

"It's not quite finished yet," he said. "But I've solved the main problem. The old single knife-blade principle was clumsy; dragged, you know. But with two blades—a pair of shears, so to speak—it'll work much quicker." And he gave them a little lecture, showing how much simpler his mechanism was, and how much lighter the machine would be.

"And there you are," said Klaus. "It's Columbus's egg over again."

"The patent ought to be worth a million," said Ferdinand Holm, slowly, looking out of the window.

"Of course the main thing is, to make the work easier and cheaper for the farmers," said Peer, with a rather sly glance at Ferdinand.

Dinner that evening was a festive meal. When the liqueur brandy went round, Klaus greeted it with enthusiasm. "Why, here's an old friend, as I live! Real Lysholmer!—well, well; and so you're still in the land of the living? You remember the days when we were boys together?" He lifted the little glass and watched the light play in the pale spirit. And the three old friends drank together, singing "The first full glass," and then "The second little nip," with the proper ceremonial observances, just as they had done in the old days, at their student wine-parties.

The talk went merrily, one good story calling up another. But Merle could not help noticing the steely gleam of Ferdinand Holm's eyes, even when he laughed.

The talk fell on new doings in Egypt, and as Peer heard more and more of these, it seemed to her that his look changed. His glance, too, seemed to have that glint of steel, there was something strange and absent in his face; was he feeling, perhaps, that wife and children were but a drag on a man, after all? He seemed like an old war-horse waking suddenly at the sound of trumpets.

"There's a nice little job waiting for you, by the way," said Ferdinand Holm, lifting his glass to Peer.

"Very kind of you, I'm sure. A sub-directorship under you?"

"You're no good under any one. You belong on top." Ferdinand illustrated his words with a downward and an upward pointing of the finger. "The harnessing of the Tigris and Euphrates will have to be taken in hand. It's only a question of time."

"Thanks very much!" said Peer, his eyes wide open now.

"The plan's simply lying waiting for the right man. It will be carried out, it may be next year, it may be in ten years—whenever the man comes along. I would think about it, if I were you."

All looked at Peer; Merle fastened her eyes on him, too. But he laughed. "Now, what on earth would be the satisfaction to me of binding in bands those two ancient and honourable rivers?"

"Well, in the first place, it would mean an increase of many millions of bushels in the corn production of the world. Wouldn't you have any satisfaction in that?"

"No," said Peer, with a touch of scorn.

"Or regular lines of communication over hundreds of thousands of square miles of the most fertile country on the globe?"

"Don't interest me," said Peer.

"Ah!" Ferdinand Holm lifted his glass to Merle. "Tell me, dear lady, how does it feel to be married to an anachronism?"

"To—to what?" stammered Merle.

"Yes, your husband's an anachronism. He might, if he chose, be one of the kings, the prophets, who lead the van in the fight for civilisation. But he will not; he despises his own powers, and one day he will start a revolution against himself. Mark my words. Your health, dear lady!"

Merle laughed, and lifted her glass, but hesitatingly, and with a side-glance towards Peer.

"Yes, your husband is no better now than an egoist, a collector of happy days."

"Well, and is that so very wicked?"

"He sits ravelling out his life into a multitude of golden threads," went on Ferdinand with a bow, his steely eyes trying to look gentle.

"But what is wrong in that?" said the young wife stoutly.

"It is wrong. It is wasting his immortal soul. A man has no right to ravel out his life, even though the threads are of gold. A man's days of personal happiness are forgotten—his work endures. And your husband in particular—why the deuce should HE be so happy? The world-evolution uses us inexorably, either for light or for fuel. And Peer—your husband, dear lady—is too good for fuel."

Merle glanced again at her husband. Peer laughed, but then suddenly compressed his lips and looked down at his plate.

Then the nurse came in with little Louise, to say good-night, and the child was handed round from one to the other. But when the little fair-haired girl came to Ferdinand Holm, he seemed loth to touch her, and Merle read his glance at Peer as meaning: "Here is another of the bonds you've tied yourself up with."

"Excuse me," he said suddenly, looking at his watch, "I'm afraid I must ask for the use of the telephone again. Pardon me, Fru Holm." And he rose and left the room. Klaus looked at the others and shook his head. "That man would simply expire if he couldn't send a telegram once an hour," he said with a laugh.

Coffee was served out on the balcony, and the men sat and smoked. It was a dusky twilight of early autumn; the hills were dark blue now and distant; there was a scent of hay and garden flowers. After a while Merle rose and said good-night. And in her thoughts, when she found herself alone in her bedroom, she hardly knew whether to be displeased or not. These strange men were drawing Peer far away from all that had been his chief delight since she had known him. But it was interesting to see how different his manner was towards the two friends. Klaus Brock he could jest and laugh with, but with Ferdinand Holm he seemed always on his guard, ready to assert himself, and whenever he contradicted him it was always with a certain deference.

The great yellow disc of the moon came up over the hills in the east, drawing a broad pillar of gold across the dark water. And the three comrades on the balcony sat watching it for a while in silence.

"So you're really going to go on idling here?" asked Ferdinand at last, sipping his liqueur.

"Is it me you mean?" asked Peer, bending slightly forward.

"Well, I gather you're going round here simply being happy from morning to night. I call that idling."

"Thanks."

"Of course, you're very unhappy in reality. Everyone is, as long as he's neglecting his powers and aptitudes."

"Very many thanks," said Peer, with a laugh. Klaus sat up in his chair, a little anxious as to what was coming.

Ferdinand was still looking out over the lake. "You seem to despise your own trade—as engineer?"

"Yes," said Peer.

"And why?"

"Why, I feel the lack of some touch of beauty in our ceaseless craving to create something new, something new, always something new. More gold, more speed, more food—are these things not all we are driving at?"

"My dear fellow, gold means freedom. And food means life. And speed carries us over the dead moments. Double the possibilities of life for men, and you double their numbers."

"And what good will it do to double their numbers? Two thousand million machine-made souls—is that what you want?"

"But hang it all, man," put in Klaus Brock eagerly, "think of our dear Norway at least. Surely you don't think it would be a misfortune if our population increased so far that the world could recognise our existence."

"I do," said Peer, looking away over the lake.

"Ah, you're a fanatic for the small in size and in numbers."

"I am loth to see all Norway polluted with factories and proletariat armies. Why the devil can't we be left in peace?"

"The steel will not have it," said Ferdinand Holm, as if speaking to the pillar of moonlight on the water.

"What? Who did you say?" Peer looked at him with wide eyes.

Ferdinand went on undisturbed: "The steel will not have peace. And the fire will not. And Prometheus will not. The human spirit has still too many steps to climb before it reaches the top. Peace? No, my friend—there are powers outside you and me that determine these things."

Peer smiled, and lit a new cigar. Ferdinand Holm leaned back in his chair and went on, addressing himself apparently to the moon. "Tigris and Euphrates—Indus and Ganges—and all the rest of this planet—regulate and cultivate the whole, and what is it after all? It's only a question of a few years. It is only a humble beginning. In a couple of centuries or so there will be nothing left to occupy us any more on this little globe of ours. And then we'll have to set about colonising other worlds."

There was silence for a moment. Then Peer spoke.

"And what do we gain by it all?" he asked.

"Gain? Do you imagine there will ever be any 'thus far and no farther' for the spirit of man? Half a million years hence, all the solar systems we know of now will be regulated and ordered by the human spirit. There will be difficulties, of course. Interplanetary wars will arise, planetary patriotism, groups of planetary powers in alliances and coalitions against other groups. Little worlds will be subjugated by the bigger ones, and so on. Is there anything in all this to grow dizzy over? Great heavens—can anyone doubt that man must go on conquering and to conquer for millions of years to come? The world-will goes its way. We cannot resist. Nobody asks whether we are happy. The will that works towards the infinite asks only whom it can use for its ends, and who is useless. Viola tout."

"And when I die," asked Peer—"what then?"

"You! Are you still going about feeling your own pulse and wanting to live for ever? My dear fellow, YOU don't exist. There is just one person on our side—the world-will. And that includes us all. That's what I mean by 'we.' And we are working towards the day when we can make God respect us in good earnest. The spirit of man will hold a Day of Judgment, and settle accounts with Olympus—with the riddle, the almighty power beyond. It will be a great reckoning. And mark my words—that is the one single religious idea that lives and works in each and every one of us—the thing that makes us hold up our heads and walk upright, forgetting that we are slaves and things that die."

Suddenly he looked at his watch. "Excuse me a moment. If the telegraph office is open . . ." and he rose and went in.

When he returned, Klaus and Peer were talking of the home of their boyhood and their early days together.

"Remember that time we went shark-fishing?" asked Klaus.

"Oh yes—that shark. Let me see—you were a hero, weren't you, and beat it to death with your bare fists—wasn't that it?" And then "Cut the line, cut the line, and row for your lives," he mimicked, and burst out laughing.

"Oh, shut up now and don't be so witty," said Klaus. "But tell me, have you ever been back there since you came home?"

Peer told him that he had been to the village last year. His old foster-parents were dead, and Peter Ronningen too; but Martin Bruvold was there still, living in a tiny cottage with eight children.

"Poor devil!" said Klaus.

Ferdinand Holm had sat down again, and now he nodded towards the moon. "An old chum of yours? Well, why don't we send him a thousand crowns?"

There was a little pause. "I hope you'll let me join you," went on Ferdinand, taking a note for five hundred crowns from his waistcoat pocket. "You don't mind, do you?"

Peer glanced at him and took the note. "I'm delighted for poor old Martin's sake," he said, putting the note in his waistcoat pocket. "That'll make fifteen hundred for him."

Klaus Brock looked from one to the other and smiled a little. The talk turned on other things for a while, and then he asked:

"By the way, Peer, have you seen that advertisement of the British Carbide Company's?"

"No, what about?"

"They want tenders for the damming and harnessing of the Besna River, with its lake system and falls. That should be something in your line."

"No," said Ferdinand sharply. "I told you before—that job's too small for him. Peer's going to the Euphrates."

"What would it amount to, roughly?" said Peer, addressing no one in particular.

"As far as I could make out, it should be a matter of a couple of million crowns or thereabout," said Klaus.

"That's not a thing for Peer," said Ferdinand, rising and lifting his hand to hide a yawn. "Leave trifles like that to the trifling souls. Good-night, gentlemen."

A couple of hours later, when all was silent throughout the house, Peer was still up, wandering to and fro in soft felt slippers in the great hall. Now and again he would stop, and look out of the window. Why could he not sleep? The moon was paling, the day beginning to dawn.



Chapter VIII

The next morning Merle was alone in the pantry when she heard steps behind her, and turned her head. It was Klaus Brock.

"Good-morning, madam—ah! so this is what you look like in morning dress. Why, morning neglige might have been invented for you, if I may say so. You might be a Ghirlandajo. Or no, better still, Aspasia herself."

"You are up early," said Merle drily.

"Am I? What about Ferdinand Holm then? He has been up since sunrise, sitting over his letters and accounts. Anything I can help you with? May I move that cheese for you?—Well, well! you are strong. But there, I'm always de trop where women are concerned."

"Always de trop?" repeated Merle, watching him through her long lashes.

"Yes—my first and only love—do you know who she was?"

"No, indeed. How should I?"

"Well, it was Louise—Peer's little sister. I wish you could have known her."

"And since then?" Merle let her eyes rest on this flourishing gentleman, who looked as if he could never have had a trouble in the world.

"Since then, dear lady?—since then? Let me see. Why, at this moment I really can't remember ever having met any other woman except . . ."

"Except . . . ?"

"Except yourself, madam." And he bowed.

"You are TOO kind!"

"And, that being so, don't you think it's your plain duty, as a hospitable hostess, to grant me . . ."

"Grant you—what? A piece of cheese?"

"Why, no, thanks. Something better. Something much better than that."

"What, then?"

"A kiss. I might as well have it now." As he took a step nearer, she looked laughingly round for a way of escape, but he was between her and the door.

"Well," said Merle, "but you must do something to make yourself useful first. Suppose you ran up that step-ladder for me."

"Delighted. Why, this is great fun!" The slight wooden ladder creaked under the weight of his solid form as he climbed. "How high am I to go?"

"To reach the top shelf—that's it. Now, you see that big brown jar? Careful—it's cranberries."

"Splendid—I do believe we're to have cranberry preserve at dinner." By standing on tiptoe he managed to reach and lift the heavy jar, and stood holding it, his face flushed with his exertions.

"And now, little lady?"

"Just stay there a moment and hold it carefully; I have to fetch something." And she hurried out.

Klaus stood at the top of the ladder, holding the heavy jar. He looked round. What was he to do with it? He waited for Merle to return—but she did not appear. Someone was playing the piano in the next room. Should he call for help? He waited on, getting redder and redder in the face. And still no Merle came.

With another mighty effort he set the jar back in its place, and then climbed down the ladder and walked into the drawing-room, very red and out of breath. In the doorway he stopped short and stared.

"What—well, I'll—And she's sitting here playing the piano!"

"Yes. Aren't you fond of music, Herr Brock?"

"I'll pay you out for this," he said, shaking a finger at her. "Just you wait and see, little lady, if I don't pay you out, with interest!" And he turned and went upstairs, chuckling as he went.

Peer was sitting at the writing-table in his study when Klaus came in. "I'm just sealing up the letter with the money for Martin Bruvold," he said, setting the taper to a stick of sealing wax. "I've signed it: 'From the shark fishers.'"

"Yes, it was a capital idea of Ferdinand's. What d'you think the poor old fellow'll say when he opens it and the big notes tumble out?"

"I'd like to see his face," said Peer, as he wrote the address on the envelope.

Klaus dropped into a leather armchair and leaned back comfortably. "I've been downstairs flirting a little with your wife," he said. "Your wife's a wonder, Peer."

Peer looked at him, and thought of the old days when the heavy-built, clumsy doctor's son had run about after the servant-girls in the town. He had still something of his old lurching walk, but intercourse with the ladies of many lands had polished him and given lightness and ease to his manner.

"What was I going to say?" Klaus went on. "Oh yes—our friend Ferdinand's a fine fellow, isn't he?"

"Yes, indeed."

"I felt yesterday exactly as I used to feel when we three were together in the old days. When I listen to his talk I can't help agreeing with him—and then you begin to speak, and what you say, too, seems to be just what I've been thinking in my inmost soul. Do you think I've become shallow, Peer?"

"Well, your steam ploughs look after themselves, I suppose, and the ladies of your harem don't trouble you overmuch. Do you read at all?"

"Best not say too much about that," said Klaus with a sigh, and it suddenly struck Peer that his friend's face had grown older and more worn.

"No," said Klaus again. "Better not say much about that. But tell me, old fellow—you mustn't mind my asking—has Ferdinand ever spoken to you as his brother . . . or . . ."

Peer flushed hotly. "No," he said after a pause.

"No?"

"I owe more to him than to anybody in the world. But whether he regards me as a kinsman or simply as an object for his kindness to wreak itself on is a matter he's always left quite vague."

"It's just like him. He's a queer fellow. But there's another thing. . . ."

"Well?" said Peer, looking up.

"It's—er—again it's rather a delicate matter to touch on. I know, of course, that you're in the enviable position of having your fortune invested in the best joint-stock company in the world—"

"Yes; and so are you."

"Oh, mine's a trifle compared with yours. Have you still the whole of your money in Ferdinand's company?"

"Yes. I've been thinking of selling a few shares, by the way. As you may suppose, I've been spending a good deal just lately—more than my income."

"You mustn't sell just now, Peer. They're—I daresay you've seen that they're down—below par, in fact."

"What—below par! No, I had no idea of that."

"Oh, only for the time being, of course. Just a temporary drop. There's sure to be another run on them soon, and they'll go up again. But the Khedive has the controlling interest, you know, and he's rather a ticklish customer. Ferdinand is all for extension—wants to keep on buying up new land—new desert, that is. Irrigation there's just a question of power—that's how he looks at it. And of course the bigger the scale of the work the cheaper the power will work out. But the Khedive's holding back. It may be just a temporary whim—may be all right again to-morrow. But you never know. And if you think Ferdinand's the man to give in to a cranky Khedive, you're much mistaken. His idea now is to raise all the capital he can lay hands on, and buy him out! What do you say to that? Buy the Khedive clean out of the company. It's a large order. And if I were you, old man, as soon as the shares go up again a bit, I'd sell out some of my holding, and put the money into something at home here. After all, there must be plenty of quite useful things to be had here."

Peer frowned, and sat for a while looking straight before him. "No," he said at last. "As things stand between Ferdinand Holm and me—well, if either of us goes back on the other, it's not going to be me."

"Ah, in that case—I beg your pardon," said Klaus, and he rose and departed.

The christening was a great occasion, with a houseful of guests, and a great deal of speechmaking. The host was the youngest and gayest of the party. The birth of his son should be celebrated in true Ethiopian fashion, he declared—with bonfires and boating parties.

The moon was hidden that evening behind thick dark clouds, but the boats full of guests glided over the black water to the accompaniment of music and laughter. The young madcap of a lawyer was there, again sitting on the lap of someone else's wife, and playing a concertina, till people in the farms on shore opened their windows and put their heads out to listen.

Later on the bonfires blazed up all along the lake shore and shone like great flaming suns in the water below. The guests lay on the grass in little groups round picnic suppers, and here and there a couple wandered by themselves, talking in whispers.

Merle and Peer stood together for a moment beside one of the bonfires. Their faces and figures were lit by the red glow; they looked at each other and exchanged a smile. He took her hand and led her outside the circle of light from the fire, and pointed over to their home, with all its windows glowing against the dark.

"Suppose this should be the last party we give, Merle."

"Peer, what makes you say that?"

"Oh, nothing—only I have a sort of feeling, as if something had just ended and something new was to begin. I feel like it, somehow. But I wanted to thank you, too, for all the happy times we've had."

"But Peer—what—" She got no farther, for Peer had already left her and joined a group of guests, where he was soon as gay as the rest.

Then came the day when the two visitors were to leave. Their birthday gift to the young gentleman so lately christened Lorentz Uthoug stood in the drawing-room; it was a bust in red granite, the height of a man, of the Sun-god Re Hormachis, brought with them by the godfathers from Alexandria. And now it sat in the drawing-room between palms in pots, pressing its elbows against its sides and gazing with great dead eyes out into endless space.