"You mean that it doesn't seem real?"
She nodded.
"Well, maybe it isn't. He said he was a sort of Flying Dutchman."
"I should hate to think that he wasn't real, Elizabeth. He is as alive
as a--burning coal."
Olaf came back with the pictures of his ship, a clean-cut, beautiful
craft, very up-to-date, except for the dragon-heads at prow and stem.
"If I could have had my way," he told us, "I should have built it like
the ship on the tapestry in there--but it wasn't practical--we haven't
manpower for the oars in these days."
He had other pictures--of a strange house, or, rather, of a collection
of buildings set in the form of a quadrangle, and inclosed by low walls.
There were great gateways of carved wood with ironwork and views of the
interior--a wide hall with fireplaces--a raised platform, with carved
seats that gave a throne-like effect. The house stood on a sort of high
peninsula with a forest back of it, and the sea spreading out beyond.
"The house looks old," Olaf said, "but I planned it."
He had, he explained, during one of his voyages, come upon a hidden
harbor. "There is only a fishing village and a few small boats at the
landing place, but the people claim to be descendants of the vikings.
They are utterly isolated, but a God-fearing, hardy folk.
"It is strangely cut off from the rest of the world. I call it 'The
Hidden Land.' It is not on any map. I have looked and have not found
it."
"But why," was Nancy's demand, "did you build there?"
It was a question, I think, for which he had waited. "Some day I may
tell you, but not now, except this--that I love the sea, and I shall end
my days where, when I open my gates, my eyes may rest upon it ... where
its storms may beat upon my roof, and where the men about me shall sail
it, and get their living from it.
"I have told your cousin," he went on, "something of the life of my
grandfather and of my father. With all of their sea-blood, they were
shut away for two generations from the sea. Can you grasp the meaning of
that to me?--the heritage of suppressed longings? I think my father must
have felt it as I did, for he drank heavily before he died. My
grandfather sought an outlet in founding the family fortunes. But when I
came, there was not the compelling force of poverty to make me work, and
I had before me the warning of my father's excesses. But this
sea-madness! It has driven me on and on, and at last it has driven me
here." He stopped, then took up the theme again in his tense, excited
fashion, "It will drive me on again."
"Why should it drive you on?"
When Nancy asked that question, I knew what had happened. The thrill of
her voice was the answer of a bird to its mate. When I think of her, I
see her always as she was then, the blue cloak falling about her, her
hair blowing, her cheeks flaming with lovely color.
I saw his fingers clench the arm of his chair as if in an effort of
self-control. Then he said: "Perhaps I shall tell you that, too. But not
now." He rose abruptly. "It is warmer inside, and we can have some
music. I am sure you must be tired of hearing me talk about myself."
He played for us, in masterly fashion, the Peer Gynt suite, and after
that a composition of his own. At last he sang, with all the swing of
the sea in voice and accompaniment, and the song drew our hearts out of
us.
Nancy was very quiet as we drove from the pier, and it was while I was
dressing for dinner that she came into my room.
"Elizabeth," she said, "I am not sure whether we have been to a
Methodist revival or to a Wagner music-drama--"
"Neither," I told her. "There's nothing artificial about him. You asked
me back there if he was real. I believe that he is utterly real, Nancy.
It is not a pose. I am convinced that it is not a pose."
"Yes," she said, "that's the queer thing. He's not--putting it
on--and he makes everybody else seem--stale and shallow--like
ghosts--or--shadow-shapes--"
* * * * *
I read _Vanity Fair_ late into the night, and the morning was coming on
before I tried to sleep. I waked to find Nancy standing by my bed.
"His boat is gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes. It went an hour ago. I saw it from the roof."
"From the roof?"
"Yes. I got up--early. I--I could not sleep. And when I looked--it was
gone--your glasses showed it almost out of sight."
She was wrapped in the blue cloak. Olaf had made her bring it with her.
She had protested. But he had been insistent.
"I found this in the pocket," Nancy said, and held out a card on which
Olaf had written, "When she lifted her arms, opening the door, a light
shone on them from the sea, and the air and all the world were
brightened for her."
"What does it mean, Elizabeth?"
"I think you know, my dear."
"That he cares?"
"What do you think?"