Ragna Part 3

Ragna described to him the dress of the women about her home, and was led on to talk of the many ancient customs of the country people, now fallen into disuse, such as the duel with daggers, both men bound together with the same leather belt, and of other contests, bloodless ones these, when two or more men vied with each other in improvising verse, often carrying it on far into the night. She told of the bear-hunts, of the strange tales of returning whalers, of her Uncle Olaf and his phantom ship, and of her fancy of seeing him in the storm.

As she talked, the men smoked; Count Angelescu watched her, charmed by her fresh young voice and the expressive play of her features. He thought to himself: "No, my dear friend this is no game for you. St.

Petersburg will furnish you with adversaries worthy of your steel, save your efforts for them--this little girl is too good for you," and he made up his mind not to leave the Prince alone with Ragna, more than was unavoidable. Speaking to the Prince himself would do no good, very possibly it might put ideas into his head that he had not heretofore consciously entertained--or might crystallize the mere intent to please into obstinate purpose of conquest. Angelescu was thoroughly determined in his own mind that no harm should come to Ragna which he could prevent.

Prince Mirko, on his part, was listening to her chatter, the picture of lazy enjoyment, his graceful figure reclining easily in his deck-chair.

He played with his cigarette while watching her with narrowed eyes. He noted the graceful poise of her head, the gleam of her heavy hair, the fresh colour coming and going under her transparent skin, the rounded contours of her slender figure, but it was her mouth that fascinated him most, sinuous, sensitive and red--too red.

"Good Lord," he reflected, "what a temperament the girl must have! I wonder what kind of a man will get her? Her husband--or lover, will be a lucky man. I shouldn't object myself, to playing Pygmalion to her Galatea." He fell to imagining what she would be like when the crude innocence of her eyes should give way to a depth of pa.s.sionate feeling, when the barely perceptible circles under them should widen and darken, and her mouth--that luscious, voluptuous, childish mouth should take a man's kisses and return them. He thrilled at the thought, then pulled himself together ashamed at the direction his thoughts had taken. "You fool," he said to himself, "can't you leave that child alone? I really believe Otto was not far wrong in warning her against me--I'll show him he's wrong though, I'm not as bad as that! I may be a bit of a Don Juan, but I'm not a _mangeur de pet.i.ts enfants_!"

He rose to throw his cigarette-b.u.t.t over the side and lighting a fresh one strolled up and down the deck, watching the sh.o.r.es slip by.

Captain Petersen at that moment joined them and his presence amalgamated the discordant unities of the group. Ragna had felt, without understanding it, a sort of moral tension during the last few moments, and though the Prince's abrupt rising had relieved it, there persisted an uncomfortable undercurrent of conflicting influences. Captain Petersen's cheery red face and jovial manner came like a rush of fresh air into an overheated room. He indicated the various points of interest as they steamed by and regretted that they would pa.s.s Heligoland after dark.

"If it keeps clear, we shall see it by moonlight though," he promised them.

Ragna sought her cabin early on the plea of getting ready for dinner, and contrary to her custom spent much time over her toilette, trying her hair this way and that, and pa.s.sing in review her not too extensive wardrobe. She had awakened to a sense of coquetry; she was newly conscious of a deliberate desire to please.

When she had finished she viewed with dissatisfaction the image her gla.s.s reflected: her hair seemed to her much too formal and school-girlish in its arrangement, yet had she known it, the severe lines of burnished plaits suited her small, well-shaped head and the crude youthful curves of face and slender neck far better than any more elaborate style. Her dark-blue frock opening in a point at the throat and leaving the fore-arms bare, seemed suddenly to her newborn critical sense too childish and plain--and again it suited her perfectly, throwing into relief the whiteness of her skin and the fairness of her hair, the lack of frill and furbelow emphasizing the slender waist and the rounded slimness of hip and breast. And she longed for trained ringlets and lace flounces.

Dinner was not as pleasant a meal, she thought, as luncheon; the Prince was silent, almost moody, and conversation languished.

Count Angelescu, quick to perceive the change in his Prince's manner, and as quickly guessing the cause, did his best to second so worthy a resolve by making an effort to keep up a conversation on indifferent topics and to engage Ragna's attention and interest. He was not much of a conversationalist, however, and quite unused to the society of young girls. In his part of the world girls were rarely, if ever, seen in society and the stories and small talk adapted to the married women of his acquaintance were certainly not of a type suited to present circ.u.mstances.

Ragna was disappointed; she took the Prince's bad humour for a touch of hauteur and suspected him of regretting having unbent in her society. So piqued and hurt she made no effort to second Angelescu's efforts. She ate little and refused wine until champagne was brought and Prince Mirko insisted upon filling her gla.s.s. He had been secretly amused by his aide's laborious attempts at entertainment and Ragna's very evident chagrin at his aloofness flattered his vanity. In spite of his resolution to maintain a barrier of formality between them he could not resist the temptation of making her face resume its former sunny expression. Raising his gla.s.s in which the bubbles were winking merrily he said: "Let us drink, Otto, to the health of Mademoiselle, who has turned the desert of a Norwegian ship into a garden for us!"

Ragna looked up, blushing and smiling; they both touched their gla.s.ses to hers and drank.

"Now Mademoiselle, you must answer the toast!"

"I? Oh, never!" she cried in confusion. "I have never answered a toast in my life. I don't know how!" Then recovering herself, "You may answer it for me if you like."

"Shall I?" he asked. "Very well then, I rise, lady and gentleman--no I don't, I sit down," as a lurch of the ship threw him back into his chair and spilt half the contents of his gla.s.s--"I sit then, as the elements won't permit of my standing, to thank you for the toast just drunk, and to propose in return our newborn friendship!"

They all drank to that.

"There," said Mirko, "that is better; we have set the seal on our present relation. The Present with a capital P. is always the best life has to offer. Yesterday is dead and to-morrow is in darkness: to-day only we live. _Carpe diem_ was the motto of the Ancients and it is mine!"

"Oh, no, not of all the Ancients," objected Ragna quickly, horrified at the Pagan irresponsibility of the thought, "the Stoics did not live for the pleasure of the hour, they taught themselves to forego pleasure. I think it is n.o.bler to deny one's self," she added timidly.

"Deny one's self? What for?" demanded the Prince. "Why should I deny myself anything for the sake of others' pleasure? Am I not as good as they? And besides if I deny myself it only makes them selfish. To be really altruistic I should indulge myself on every occasion with the object of cultivating a beautiful unselfishness in others--that would be true self-sacrifice"--He stopped, laughing at the extreme bewilderment of the girl's face. She had lived entirely among serious-minded people, devoid of a sense of humour, and was unused to hear what were, to her, serious matters bandied about as subjects for jest; she rejoined gravely:

"You say, 'live only for the day,' but there is a to-morrow--someone must always bear the consequences, it can't keep on being just 'to-day'

however much we may wish it."

The remark was characteristic of her, and she was one on whom life's to-morrows would fall heavily. Angelescu came to her a.s.sistance.

"Mademoiselle refuses to accept the sophistry of Your Highness's arguments," he said smiling. "Sophistry, why it is the simple truth, and the Epicureans are your true Stoics. _Carpe diem!_ Let us drink to _carpe diem_!"

"Not I," said Ragna.

"Very well then, Mademoiselle la Stoique--but I shall make it my business to convert you. Let us then drink to the health of our n.o.ble selves. What do you say, in Norwegian, when you drink a health?"

"Skaal," said Ragna.

"Skaal, then," said both men raising their gla.s.ses and looking at Ragna, who half timidly raised hers to her lips, then put it down again--and Prince Mirko added under his breath as he drained his gla.s.s,

"And to your conversion, my dear."

On deck, a fresh breeze was blowing, and Ragna bound a long scarf over her head and wrapped her travelling-cloak well about her. Accompanied by the two men she paced briskly up and down the deck inhaling joyfully the strong sea air.

"Let us try the other side," she said presently, and they turned forward of the wheel-house: At the turn the wind caught the long ends of her scarf and wound them about the Prince's neck; they paused to disentangle the soft silken thing, Prince Mirko's hands delaying rather than hastening the process, when a lurch of the vessel flung Ragna against him. He steadied himself with one arm against the deck-house and with the other supported the girl, holding her firm young body close to his.

He held her but a moment more than was needful, but in that moment, pressed close to him, his moustache brushing her cheek, she felt a repet.i.tion of the same thrill, half attraction, half fear, which had come over her the first time their eyes met. It was over in an instant and they were running down the deck before the wind, but Ragna felt a new and strange constraint upon her which did not wear off as the evening advanced.

She waited up long enough to see Heligoland rising up dark and forbidding on the starboard side in the half-light of the moon. The cloud-wrack behind, seemed like the wings of some monster bird of prey about to swoop down upon the island, crouching to repel the attack. As she watched, a cloud pa.s.sed over the moon and a jagged line of lightning cleft the darkening ma.s.s on the horizon. The flash lasted but the fraction of a second, but she had seen a ship carrying full sail silhouetted against the storm-cloud. The ship stood out for an instant in wonderful relief, every spar and rope clear-cut against the sombre background, then was swallowed up into the night.

"It is Uncle Olaf," thought Ragna. "He has come to warn me--but of what?"

She turned to Angelescu, leaning on the rail beside her.

"Did you see the ship?"

"The ship! What ship? When?"

"Just over there, against that black cloud in the lightning flash."

As she spoke the lightning flared again but revealed nothing.

"You see there is no ship, Mademoiselle," said Angelescu, "and landsman though I be, I know that she would show some lights if she were there."

"Then," said Ragna in a low voice, "the sign is not for you--it was the ship of my Uncle Olaf."

"What are you talking about so earnestly?" asked Prince Mirko, joining them. He had been lighting a cigarette in the shelter of the companion-way. His tone was suspicious, he thought that Angelescu might have been warning the girl against him. The mere fact that he suspected such a contingency and resented it, was proof patent that his good resolution of the afternoon had fallen into abeyance.

During the brief moment when he had held her in his arms, had felt her heart beating under his hand and the stray locks of her hair blowing across his face, his pulse had given a leap, and had it not been for Angelescu's restraining presence, he would have kissed her.

Angelescu hastened to rea.s.sure him:

"Mademoiselle has seen the phantom ship of her phantom uncle--I have not, which proves that my spiritual vision is defective."

Ragna laughed.

"Should I be able to see your family ghost, I wonder?" she queried.

"What makes you think I have a family ghost, Mademoiselle?"

"Everyone has them--you, the Prince--oh, everyone!"

"If you mean a private, particular ghost, Mademoiselle, every man or woman has one after a certain age. Sometimes it is the ghost of the 'has been,' sometimes of the 'what might have been,' and sometimes of both.

But you are too young for that sort of ghost--and I pray you may never have a worse one than your Uncle Olaf's."