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قراءة كتاب The Swing of the Pendulum
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Wareham.
“It is heartless.”
He kept his eyes on her face.
“Happily the dead are not hurt by heartlessness.”
“Happily,” she returned, after a moment’s pause. She glanced at him, half closing her eyes, in the manner he disliked. Already the conversation had taken an edge, of which, even had it been unintentional, neither could have been unconscious. But Wareham wished to wound. He asked whether she had noticed the group at the landing-place before this last? She made a sign of assent.
“What did you think of it?”
“I?”
“Was it more creditable to human nature? Was heart there, or was the girl merely pleased with her power?”
A smile made him more angry.
“What makes you or me her judge?”
“Dismal experience as to motives,” Wareham replied. “One lives and learns.”
“Not so surely,” Anne returned coolly. “Half the time our pretence of reading motives is sheer affectation. What we are really after is the making our conclusions fit our theories.” She suddenly shot away from the subject. “Are you travelling with the Ravenhills?”
“Yes—no,” said Wareham, surprised. “It was a chance meeting, and we have all to go the same way.”
“All?” She frowned. “Do you mean that we are irrevocably bound together?”
“Practically. Naturally there may be small deviations.”
“Oh, hateful!” she said frankly, and apparently mused over the information. Having bestowed it, Wareham was silent until she put another question. “May I inquire where you are all going to-night?”
“I can only help you so far as the Ravenhills are concerned. They will push on to Osen.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I, of course.”
“You were mistaken, then,” said Anne triumphantly, “in supposing that we follow the same route. We stop at Sand.”
He laughed. “Pardon me. Sand or Osen are practically the same thing. We meet on the same steamer to-morrow morning.”
“Oh!” She reflected again. “There is no help for it, then. Except—”
Wareham waited.
“I trust to you not to take advantage,” she said, in a hurried tone, and with a movement of the head which he interpreted as his dismissal.
Instead of rejoining the Ravenhills he stood solitary, and thought over the conversation. What ground had been won or lost between two antagonists’? He had made it plain to Miss Dalrymple that he was on his friends’ side, and she had let him know that the meeting was disagreeable to her. So far there was equality. But though he had not disguised his feelings, he could not flatter himself that he had caused Anne the slightest embarrassment. And there was vexation in the thought that their first movement had been towards sympathy, so that he remembered a throb of satisfaction on hearing her exclamation by his side. He remembered, too, and dwelt upon, the expression of her look—which said more than words—the brow slightly contracted, the eyes fixed, the strong pitiful curve of her lips. In spite of his prejudice, she was beautiful. Hugh’s raptures had inspired him with contradictory views, but he told himself now that there was no reason to be unfair, and that a lover might very well lose his head over fewer charms. Disapproval, contempt, perhaps, were as strong as ever, and proof against a woman’s face. Yet something in his own thoughts irritated him, and he turned from them to talk to a tall German, whose wife and children were ensconced in the warmest corner of the deck.
Chapter Three.
We Start Ourselves and Cry Out that Fate Pushes.
All the skydsguts, and all the owners of vehicles for miles round Sand, stormed the steamer on its arrival, and out of the struggling crowd Wareham with difficulty extricated Mrs Ravenhill and Millie, and started them in a stolkjaerre, while he himself followed in a second with a young Grey, who had, of course, crossed in the Eldorado. (Stolkjaerre pronounced stolkyerrer. Skydsgut pronounced shüssgoot.) In all there was a string of nine or ten little carriages, each drawn by a cream-coloured or light dun pony, its two occupants in front, and its skydsgut perched on the luggage behind.
Now that they had left the open fjord, wind-swept by a north-westerly gale, it had grown calm and warm; and, driving up to the mountains by the side of a hurrying river, the charm of the country began to reveal itself. Mrs Ravenhill would have liked to have broken away from the procession, and enjoyed it alone, but this was impossible. The ponies trotted in regular file, walked up the slightest incline, and raced wildly downhill; nothing would have induced ponies or drivers to part company, and, indeed, after all, something in the small cavalcade was refreshingly different from ordinary modes of travelling. Colours glowed and softened in the clear air, crimson sorrel turned the long grass into ruddy fields, waving and shimmering in the breeze, the river, narrowing, dashed itself into milky whiteness. In parts, trees growing singly out of the green, made the country park-like; elsewhere a wilder character prevailed, with a background of grey hills, on which grey clouds brooded. It was ten o’clock before they reached Osen, but so lingering was the day, that even by that time the surrounding outlines were scarcely touched with uncertainty.
Throughout the drive importunate skydsguts had petitioned on behalf of a new inn, but Wareham had decided to stop at the Suldal, known to him of old. Of all the procession only the two stolkjaerres halted there, the rest whisking by to the other and more pretentiously illuminated building; it seemed to Millie that the very landlord met them with surprise. The whole house was at their disposal; no one, he explained, was there, because the other house was very liberal to the skydsguts, and they persuaded their employers in its favour. There was something pathetic in the sad resignation with which he made this statement, and Mrs Ravenhill, whose face had fallen at realisation of the solitude, which appeared to point to something obnoxious, became enthusiastic. The quaint box-like little bedrooms, all pitch-pine, unbroken by paper, plaster, or carpet, delighted her; and as every sound was audible throughout the house, she and Millie in their separate rooms could talk as easily as if they had been together. Presently, however, other voices mingled themselves, and it became evident that some of their fellow-travellers had retraced their steps. When they came down to the meal which had been energetically prepared, they found half-a-dozen others. If it was not a very elaborate repast, there was plenty and good-will, and a homely hospitality which was pleasant. Besides, they were all hungry, and all sleepy, and neither the careful warnings against fire, with directions how to get out of the little passages, and where to find the “safety ropes,” nor the rather loud confidences of two travellers on the upper floor, could keep Mrs Ravenhill or Millie long awake.
Wareham, on the contrary, was not drawn to sleep. A paper in hand, which he wanted to think out by the help of a cigar, gave an excuse for strolling along the quiet road, where all was still except the unresting swirl of the river. His will forced concentration upon the matter which was in his mind, but it was like driving unruly horses,