If Roy had seemed unsympathetic as they drove home it was not because he
did not feel keenly. He was indeed afraid to show how keenly he felt,
and he would have given almost anything to have been able honestly to
say that he, too, believed in some unexplained mystery which should
entirely free his friend from reproach. But he could not honestly
believe in such a thing—it would have been as easy to him to believe in
the existence of fairies and hobgoblins. Since no such thing as magic
existed, and since Darnell had never been an assistant of Maskelyne and
Cooke, he could not believe that he had anything to do with the
five-pound note. Assuredly no one but Frithiof could have taken it out
of the till and carefully pinned it to the lining of his waistcoat
pocket. The more he thought over the details of the story, the more
irrational seemed his sister’s blind faith. And yet his longing to share
in her views chafed and irritated him as he realized the impossibility.
His mind was far too much engrossed to notice Cecil much, and that,
perhaps, was a good thing, for just then in her great dejection any
ordinarily acute observer could not have failed to read her story. But
Roy, full of passionate love for Sigrid, and of hot indignation with
James Horner for having been the instrument of bringing about all this
trouble, was little likely to observe other people.
Why had he ever gone to Paris? he wondered angrily, when his father or
James Horner could have seen to the business there quite as well. He had
gone partly because he liked the change, and partly because he was
thankful for anything that would fill up the wretched time while he
waited for Sigrid’s definite reply to his proposal. But now he blamed
himself for his restlessness, and was made miserable by the perception
that had he chosen differently all would have now been well.
He slept little that night, and went up to business the next morning in
anything but a pleasant frame of mind, for he could hardly resist his
longing to go straight to Sigrid, and see how things were with her. When
he entered the shop Darnell was in his usual place at the left-hand
counter, but Frithiof was arranging some songs on a stand in the center,
and Roy was at once struck by a change that had come over him; he could
not define it, but he felt that it was not in this way that he had
expected to find the Norwegian after a trouble which must have been so
specially galling to his pride. “How are you?” he said, grasping his
hand; but it was impossible before others to say what was really in his
heart, and it was not till an hour or two later that they had any
opportunity of really speaking together. Then it chanced that Frithiof
came into his room with a message.
“There is a Mr. Carruthers waiting to speak to you,” he said, handing
him a card; “he has two manuscript songs which he wishes to submit to
you.”
“Tell him I am engaged,” said Roy. “And that as for songs, we have
enough to last us for the next two years.”
“They are rather good; he has shown them to me. You might just glance
through them,” suggested Frithiof.
“I shall write a book some day on the sorrows of a music-publisher!”
said Roy. “How many thousands of composers do you think there can be in
this overcrowded country? No, I’ll not see the man; I’m in too bad a
temper; but you can just bring in the songs, and I will look at them and
talk to you at the same time.”
Frithiof returned in a minute, carrying the neat manuscripts which meant
so much to the composer and so little, alas! to the publisher. Roy
glanced through the first.
“The usual style of thing,” he said. “Moon, man, and maid, rill and
hill, quarrel, kisses—all based on ‘So the Story Goes.’ I don’t think
this is worth sending to the reader. What’s the other? Words by
Swinburne: ‘If Love were what the Rose is.’ Yes, you are right; this one
is original; I rather like that refrain. We will send it to Martino and
see what he thinks of it. Tell Mr. Carruthers that he shall hear about
it in a month or two. And take him back this moonlight affair. Don’t go
yet; he can wait on tenter-hooks a little longer. Of course they have
told me at home about all this fuss on Monday, and I want you to promise
me one thing.”
“What is that?” said Frithiof.
“That you wont worry about this miserable five-pound note. That, if you
ever think of it again, you will remember that my father and I both
regard the accident as if it had never happened.”
“Then you too take his view of the affair?” said Frithiof.
“Yes, it seems to me the only reasonable one; but don’t let us talk of a
thing that is blotted out and done away. It makes no difference whatever
to me, and you must promise that you wont let it come between us.”
“You are very good,” said Frithiof sadly; and, remembering the
hopelessness of arguing with one who took this view of his trouble, he
said no more, but went back to the poor composer, whose face lengthened
when he saw that his hands were not empty, but brightened into radiant
hope as Frithiof explained that one song would really have the rare
privilege of being actually looked at. Being behind the scenes, he
happened to know that the vast majority of songs sent to the firm
remained for a few weeks in the house, and were then wrapped up again
and returned without even being glanced at. His intervention had, at any
rate, saved Mr. Carruthers from that hard fate.
“And yet, poor fellow,” he reflected, “even if he does get his song
published it is a hundred to one that it will fall flat and never do him
any good at all; where one succeeds a thousand fail; that seems the law
of the world, and I am one of the thousand. I wonder what is the use of
it all!”
Some lines that Donati had quoted to him returned to his mind:
“Glorious it is to wear the crown
Of a deserved and pure success;
He that knows how to fail has won
A crown whose luster is not less.”
His reflections were interrupted by the entrance of two customers,
evidently a very recently married couple, who had come to choose a
piano. Once again he had to summon Roy, who stood patiently discoursing
on the various merits of different makers until at last the purchase had
been made. Then, unable any longer to resist the feverish impatience
which had been consuming him for so long, he snatched up his hat, left
word with Frithiof that he should be absent for an hour, and getting
into a hansom drove straight to the model lodgings.
He felt a curious sense of incongruity as he walked across the
court-yard; this great business-like place was, as Sigrid had once said,
very much like a hive. An air of industry and orderliness pervaded it,
and Roy, in his eager impatience, felt as if he had no right there at
all. This feeling cast a sort of chill over his happiness as he knocked
at the familiar door. A voice within bade him enter, and, emerging from
behind the Japanese screen, he found Sigrid hard at work ironing. She
wore a large brown holland apron and bib over her black dress, her
sleeves were turned back, revealing her round, white arms up to the
elbow, and the table was strewn with collars and cuffs.
“I thought it was Mrs. Hallifield come to scrub the kitchen,” she
exclaimed, “or I should not have cried ‘Come in!’ so unceremoniously.
Cecil told us you were expected last night.”
“Will you forgive me for coming at this hour?” he began eagerly. “I knew
it was the only time I was sure to find you at home, and I couldn’t rest
till I had seen you.”
“It was very good of you to come,” she said, coloring a little; “you
wont mind if I just finish my work while we talk?”
The ironing might, in truth, have waited very well; but somehow it
relieved her embarrassment to sprinkle and arrange and iron the “fine
things” which, from motives of economy, she washed herself.
“I have seen Frithiof,” he said, rather nervously. “He is looking better
than I had expected after such an annoyance.”
“You have spoken to him about it?”
“Only for a minute or two. After all, what is there to say but that the
whole affair must be forgotten, and never again mentioned by a soul. I
want so to make you understand that it is to us nothing at all, that it
is ridiculous to suppose that it can affect our thoughts of him. It was
the sort of thing that might happen to any one after such an illness.”
Sigrid looked up at him. There was the same depth of disappointment in
her expression as there had been in Cecil’s.
“You take that view of it,” she said slowly. “Somehow I had hoped you
would have been able to find the true explanation.”
“If there were any other you surely know that I would seek for it with
all my might,” said Roy. “But I do not see how any other explanation can
possibly exist.”
She sighed.
“You are disappointed,” he said. “You thought I should have taken the
view that Carlo Donati takes. I only wish I could. But, you see, my
nature is more prosaic. I can’t make myself believe a thing when all the
evidences are against it.”
“I am not blaming you,” said Sigrid. “It is quite natural, and of course
most employers would have taken a far harder view of the matter, and
turned Frithiof off at a moment’s notice. You and Mr. Boniface have been
very kind.”
“Don’t speak like that,” he exclaimed. “How can you speak of kindness as
between us? You know that Frithiof is like a brother to me.”
“No,” she said; “you are mistaken. I know that you are fond of him; but,
if he were like a brother to you, then you would understand him; you
would trust him through everything as I do.”
Perhaps she was unreasonable. But then she was very unhappy and very
much agitated; and women are not always reasonable, or men either, for
that matter.
“Sigrid,” he said passionately, “you are not going to let this come
between us? You know that I love you with all my heart, you know that I
would do anything in the world for you, but even for love of you I
cannot make myself believe that black is white.”
“I am not reproaching you because you do not think as we think,” she
said quickly. “But in one way this must come between us.”
“Hush!” he said imploringly; “wait a little longer. I will not to-day
ask you for your answer; I will wait as long as you please; but don’t
speak now while your mind is full of this trouble.”
“If I do not speak now, when do you think I shall be more at leisure?”
she asked coldly. “Oh! it seems a light thing to you, and you are kind,
and pass it over, and hush it up, but you don’t realize how bitter it is
to a Norwegian to have such a shadow cast on his honesty. Do you think
that even if you forget it we can forget? Do you think that the other
men in the shop hold your view? Do you think that Mr. Horner agrees with
you?”
“Perhaps not. What do I care for them?” said Roy.
“No; that is just it. To you it is a matter of indifference, but to
Frithiof it is just a daily torture. And you would have me think of
happiness while he is miserable! You would have me go and leave him when
at any moment he may break down again!”
“I would never ask you to leave him,” said Roy. “Our marriage would not
at all involve that. It would be a proof to him of how little this
wretched business affects my opinion of him; it would prove to all the
world that we don’t regard it as anything but the merest accident.”
“Do you think the world would be convinced?” said Sigrid, very bitterly.
“I will tell you what it would say. It would say that I had so entangled
you that you could not free yourself, and that, in spite of Frithiof’s
disgrace, you were obliged to marry me. And that shall never be said.”
“For heaven’s sake don’t let the miserable gossip, the worthless opinion
of outsiders, make our lives miserable. What do we care for the world?
It is nothing to us. Let them say what they will; so long as they only
say lies what difference does it make to us?”
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” she said, and for the first
time the tears rushed to her eyes. “Your life has been all sheltered and
happy. But out there in Bergen I have had to bear coldness and contempt
and the knowledge that even death did not shield my father from the
poisonous tongues of the slanderers. Lies can’t make the things they say
true, but do you think that lies have no power to harm you? no power to
torture you? Oh! before you say that you should just try.”
Her words pierced his heart; the more he realized the difficulties of
her life the more intolerable grew the longing to help her, to shield
her, to defy the opinion of outsiders for her sake.
“But don’t you see,” he urged, “that it is only a form of pride which
you are giving way to? It is only that which is keeping us apart.”
“And what if it is,” she replied, her eyes flashing. “A woman has a
right to be proud in such matters. Besides, it is not only pride. It is
that I can’t think of happiness while Frithiof is miserable. My first
duty is to him; and how could I flaunt my happiness in his face? how
could I now bring back to him the remembrance of all his past troubles?”
“At least wait,” pleaded Roy, once more; “at least let me once more ask
your final answer a few months hence.”
“I will wait until Frithiof’s name is cleared,” she said passionately.
“You may ask me again then, not before.”
Then seeing the despair in his face her strength all at once gave way,
she turned aside trying to hide her tears. He stood up and came toward
her, her grief gave him fresh hope and courage.
“Sigrid,” he said, “I will not urge you any more. It shall be as you
wish. Other men have had to wait. I suppose I, too, can bear it. I only
ask one thing, tell me this once that you love me.”
He saw the lovely color flood her cheek, she turned toward him silently
but with all her soul in her eyes. For a minute he held her closely, and
just then it was impossible that he could realize the hopelessness of
the case. Strong with the rapture of the confession she had made, it was
not then, nor indeed for many hours after, that cold despair gripped his
heart once more. She loved him—he loved her with the whole strength of
his being. Was it likely that a miserable five-pound note could for ever
divide them? Poor Roy! as Sigrid had said, he had lived such a sheltered
life. He knew so little of the world.