Summer hurried on at a rapid pace, the days grew perceptibly shorter, and the birds of passage gathered in large companies on the beach and on the hill-tops, holding noisy consultations to prepare for their long southward journey. Maurice still stayed on at the Ormgrass Farm, but a strange, feverish mood had come over him. He daily measured the downward progress of the glacier in agitated expectancy, although as a scientific experiment it had long ceased to yield him any satisfaction. That huge congealed residue of ten thousand winters had, however, acquired a human interest to him which it had lacked before; what he had lost as a scientist he had gained as a man. For, with all respect for Science, that monumental virgin at whose feet so many cherished human illusions have already been sacrificed, it is not to be denied that from an unprofessional point of view a warm-blooded, fair-faced little creature like Elsie is a worthier object of a bachelor's homage. And, strive as he would, Maurice could never quite rid himself of the impression that the glacier harbored in its snowy bosom some fell design against Elsie's peace and safety. It is even possible that he never would have discovered the real nature of his feelings for her if it had not been for this constant fear that she might any moment be snatched away from him.
It was a novel experience in a life like his, so lonely amid its cold, abstract aspirations, to have this warm, maidenly spring-breath invading those chambers of his soul, hitherto occupied by shivering calculations regarding the duration and remoteness of the ice age. The warmer strata of feeling which had long lain slumbering beneath this vast superstructure of glacial learning began to break their way to the light, and startled him very much as the earth must have been startled when the first patch of green sod broke into view, steaming under the hot rays of the noonday sun. Abstractly considered, the thing seemed preposterous enough for the plot of a dime novel, while in the light of her sweet presence the development of his love seemed as logical as an algebraic problem. At all events, the result was in both cases equally inexorable. It was useless to argue that she was his inferior in culture and social accomplishments; she was still young and flexible, and displayed an aptness for seizing upon his ideas and assimilating them which was fairly bewildering. And if purity of soul and loving singleness of purpose be a proof of noble blood, she was surely one of nature's noblewomen.
In the course of the summer, Fern had made several attempts to convince old Tharald that the glacier was actually advancing. He willingly admitted that there was a possibility that it might change its mind and begin to recede before any mischief was done, but he held it to be very hazardous to stake one's life on so slim a chance. The old man, however, remained impervious to argument, although he no longer lost his temper when the subject was broached. His ancestors had lived there on the farm century after century, he said, and the glacier had done them no harm. He didn't see why he should be treated any worse by the Almighty than they had been; he had always acted with tolerable fairness toward everybody, and had nothing to blame himself for.
It was perhaps the third time when Tharald had thus protested his blamelessness, that his guest, feeling that reasoning was unavailing, let drop some rather commonplace remark about the culpability of all men before God.
Tharald suddenly flared up, and brought down his fist with a blow on the table.
"Somebody has been bearing tales to you, young man," he cried. "Have you been listening to parish talk?"
"That matters little," answered Fern, coolly. "No one is so blameless that he can claim exemption from misfortune as his just desert."
"Aha, so they have told you that the farm is not mine," continued his host, while his gray eyes glimmered uneasily under his bushy brows. "They have told you that silly nursery tale of the planting of the fern and the sweet-brier, and of Ulf, who sought his death in the glacier. They have told you that I stole the bride of my brother Arne, and that he fled from me over the sea,—and you have believed it all."
At the sound of the name Arne, a flash darted through Maurice's mind; he sprang up, stood for a moment tottering, and then fell back into the chair. Dim memories of his childhood rose up within him; he remembered how his father, who was otherwise so brave and frank and strong, had recoiled from speaking of that part of his life which preceded his coming to the New World. And now, he grasped with intuitive eagerness at this straw, but felt still a vague fear of penetrating into the secret which his father had wished to hide from him. He raised his head slowly, and saw Tharald's face contracted into an angry scowl and his eyes staring grimly at him.
"Well, does the devil ride you?" he burst forth, with his explosive grunt.
Maurice brushed his hand over his face as if to clear his vision, and returned Tharald's stare with frank fearlessness. There was no denying that in this wrinkled, roughly hewn mask there were lines and suggestions which recalled the free and noble mold of his father's features. It was a coincidence of physiognomic intentions rather than actual resemblance—or a resemblance, such as might exist between a Vandyck portrait and the same face portrayed by some bungling village artist.
The old man, too, was evidently seeing visions; for he presently began to wince under Maurice's steady gaze, and some troubled memory dwelt in his eye as he rose, and took to sauntering distractedly about on the floor.
"How long is it since your brother Arne fled over the sea?" asked Maurice, firmly.
"How does that concern you?"
"It does concern me, and I wish to know."
Tharald paused in his walk, and stood long, measuring his antagonist with a look of slow, pondering defiance. Then he tossed his head back with a grim laugh, walked toward a carved oaken press in a corner, took out a ponderous Bible, and flung it down on the table.
"I am beginning to see through your game," he said gruffly. "Here is the family record. Look into it at your leisure. And if you are right, let me know. But don't you tell me that that scare about the glacier wasn't all humbug. If it is your right of entail you want to look up, I sha'n't stand in your way."
Thereupon he stalked out, slamming the door behind him; the walls shook, and the windows shivered in their frames.
A vast sheet of gauzy cloud was slowly spreading over the western expanse of the sky. Through its silvery meshes the full moon looked down upon the glacier with a grave unconcern. Drifts of cold white mist hovered here and there over the surface of the ice, rising out of the deep blue hollows, catching for an instant the moonbeams, and again gliding away into the shadow of some far-looming peak.
On the little winding path at the end of the glacier stood Maurice, looking anxiously down toward the valley. Presently a pale speck of color was seen moving in the fog, and on closer inspection proved to be that scarlet bodice which in Norway constitutes the middle portion of a girl's figure. A minute more, and the bodice was surmounted by a fair, girlish face, which looked ravishingly fresh and tangible in its misty setting. The lower portions, partly owing to their neutral coloring and in part to the density of the fog, were but vaguely suggested.
"I have been waiting for you nearly half an hour, down at the river-brink," called out a voice from below, and its clear, mellow ring seemed suddenly to lighten the heavy atmosphere. "I really thought you had forgotten me."
"Forgotten you?" cried Maurice, making a very unscientific leap down in the direction of the voice "When did I ever forget you, you ungrateful thing?"
"Aha!" responded Elsie, laughing, for of course the voice as well as the bodice was hers. "Now didn't you say the edge of the glacier?"
"Yes, but I didn't say the lower edge. If you had at all been gifted with the intuition proverbially attributed to young ladies in your situation, you would have known that I meant the western edge—in fact here, and nowhere else."
"Even though you didn't say it?"
"Even though I did say it."
Fern was now no longer a resident of the Ormgrass Farm. After the discovery of their true relation, Tharald had shown a sort of sullen, superstitious fear of him, evidently regarding him as a providential Nemesis who had come to avenge the wrong he had done to his absent brother. No amount of friendliness on Maurice's part could dispel this lurking suspicion, and at last he became convinced that, for the old man's sake as well as for his own, it was advisable that they should separate. This arrangement, however, involved a sacrifice which our scientist had at first been disposed to regard lightly; but a week or two of purely scientific companionship soon revealed to him how large a factor Elsie had become in his life, and we have seen how he managed to reconcile the two conflicting necessities. The present rendezvous he had appointed with a special intention, which, with his usual directness, he proceeded to unfold to her.
"Elsie dear," he began, drawing her down on a stone at his side, "I have something very serious which I wish to talk to you about."
"And why do you always want to talk so solemnly to me, Maurice?"
"Now be a brave little girl, Elsie, and don't be frightened."
"And is it, then, so very dreadful?" she queried, trembling a little at the gravity of his manner rather than his words.
"No, it isn't dreadful at all. But it is of great importance, and therefore we must both be serious. Now, Elsie dear, tell me honestly if you love me enough to become my wife now, at once."
The girl cast timid glances around her, as if to make sure that they were unobserved. Then she laid her arms round his neck, gazed for a moment with that trustful look of hers into his eyes, and put up her lips to be kissed.
"That is no answer, my dear," he said, smiling, but responding readily to the invitation. "I wish to know if you care enough for me to go away with me to a foreign land, and live with me always as my wife."
"I cannot live anywhere without you," she murmured, sadly.
"And then you will do as I wish?"
"But it will take three weeks to have the banns published, and you know father would never allow that."
"That is the very reason why I wish you to do without his consent. If you will board the steamer with me to-morrow night, we will go to England and there we can be married without the publishing of banns, and before any one can overtake us."
"But that would be very wrong, wouldn't it? I think the Bible says so, somewhere."
"In Bible times marriages were on a different basis from what they are now. Moreover, love was not such an inexorable thing then, nor engagements so pressing."
She looked up with eyes full of pathetic remonstrance, and was sadly puzzled.
"Then you will come, darling?" he urged, with lover-like persuasiveness. "Say that you will."
"I will—try," she whispered, tearfully, and hid her troubled face on his bosom.
"One thing more," he went on. "Your house is built on the brink of eternity. The glacier is moving down upon you silently but surely. I have warned your father, but he will not believe me. I have chosen this way of rescuing you, because it is the only way."
The next evening Maurice and his servant stood on the pier, waiting impatiently for Elsie, until the whistle sounded, and the black-hulled boat moved onward, ploughing its foamy path through the billows. But Elsie did not come.
Another week passed, and Maurice, fired with a new and desperate resolution, started for the capital, and during the coming winter the glacier was left free to continue its baneful plottings undisturbed by the importunate eyes of science. Immediately on his arrival in the city he set on foot a suit in his father's name against Tharald Gudmundson Ormgrass, to recover his rightful inheritance.
On a cold, bleak day, in the latter part of March, we find Maurice once more in the valley. He had played a hazardous game, but so far fortune had favored him. In that supreme self-trust which a great and generous passion inspires, he had determined to force Tharald Ormgrass to save himself and his children from the imminent destruction. The court had recognized his right to the farm upon the payment of five hundred dollars to its present nominal owner. The money had already been paid, and the farm lay now desolate and forlorn, shivering in the cold gusts from the glacier. The family had just boarded a large English brig which lay at anchor out in the fjord, and was about to set sail for the new world beyond the sea. In the prow of the vessel stood Tharald, gazing with sullen defiance toward the unknown west, while Elsie, her eyes red with weeping, and her piquant little face somewhat pinched with cold, was clinging close to him, and now and then glancing back toward the dear, deserted homestead.
It had been a sad winter for poor little Elsie. As the lawsuit had progressed, she had had to hear many a harsh word against her lover, which seemed all the harder because she did not know how to defend him. His doings, she admitted, did seem incomprehensible, and her father certainly had some show of justice on his side when he upbraided him as cruel, cold, and ungrateful; but, with the sweet, obstinate loyalty of a Norse maiden, she still persisted in believing him good and upright and generous. Some day it would all be cleared up, she thought, and then her triumph and her happiness would be the greater. A man who knew so many strange things, she argued in her simplicity (for her pride in his accomplishments was in direct proportion to her own inability to comprehend them), could not possibly be mean and selfish as other men.
The day had, somehow, a discontented, dubious look. Now its sombre veil was partially lifted, and something like the shadow of a smile cheered you by its promise, if not by its presence; then a great rush of light from some unexpected quarter of the heavens, and then again a sudden closing of all the sunny paths—a dismal, gray monotony everywhere. Now and then tremendous groans and long-drawn thunderous rumblings were heard issuing from the glaciers, and the ice-choked river, whose voice seldom rose above an even baritone, now boomed and brawled with the most capricious interludes of crashing, grinding, and rushing sounds.
On the pier down at the fjord stood Maurice, dressed from head to foot in flannel, and with a jaunty sailor's hat, secured with an elastic cord under his chin. He was gazing with an air of preoccupation up toward the farm, above which the white edge of the glacier hung gleaming against the dim horizon. Above it the fog rose like a dense gray wall, hiding the destructive purpose which was even at this moment laboring within. Some minutes elapsed. Maurice grew impatient, then anxious. He pulled his note-book from his pocket, examined some pages covered with calculations, dotted a neglected i, crossed a t, and at last closed the book with a desperate air. Presently some dark figure was seen striding down the hill-side, and the black satellite, Jake, appeared, streaming with mud and perspiration.
"Well, you wretched laggard," cried Maurice, as he caught sight of him, "what answer?"
"Nobody answered nothing at all," responded Jake, all out of breath. "They be all gone. Aboard the ship, out there. All rigged, ready to sail."
A few minutes later there was a slight commotion on board the brig Queen Anne. A frolicsome tar had thrown out a rope, and hauled in two men one white and one black. The crew thronged about them,
"English, eh?"
"No; American."
"Yankees? Je-ru-salem! Saw your rig wasn't right, somehow."
General hilarity. Witty tar looks around with an air of magnanimous deprecation.
A strange feeling of exultation had taken possession of Maurice. The light and the air suddenly seemed glorious to him. He knew the world misjudged his action; but he felt no need of its vindication. He was rather inclined to chuckle over its mistake, as if it and not he were the sufferer. He walked with rapid steps toward the prow of the ship, where. Tharald and Elsie were standing. There was a look of invincibility in his eye which made the old man quail before him. Elsie's face suddenly brightened, as if flooded with light from within; she made an impulsive movement toward him, and then stood irresolute.
"Elsie," called out her father, with a husky tremor in his voice. "Let him alone, I tell thee. He might leave us in peace now. He has driven from hearth and home." Then, with indignant energy, "He shall not touch thee, child. By the heavens, he shall not."
Maurice smiled, and with the same sense of serene benignity, wholly unlover-like, clasped her in his arms.
A wild look flashed in the father's eyes; a hoarse groan broke from his chest. Then, with a swift rekindling of energy, he darted forward, and his broad hands fell with a tiger-like grip on Maurice's shoulders. But hark! The voices of the skies and the mountains echo the groan. The air, surcharged with terror, whirls in wild eddies, then holds its breath and trembles. All eyes are turned toward the glacier. The huge white ridge, gleaming here and there through a cloud of smoke, is pushing down over the mountain-side, a black bulwark of earth rising totteringly before it, and a chaos of bowlders and blocks of ice following, with dull crunching and grinding noises, in its train. The barns and the store-house of the Ormgrass farm are seen slowly climbing the moving earth-wall, then follows the mansion—rising—rising—and with a tremendous, deafening crash the whole huge avalanche sweeps downward into the fjord. The water is lashed into foam; an enormous wave bearing on its crest the shattered wrecks of human homes, rolls onward; the good ship Queen Anne is tossed skyward, her cable snaps and springs upward against the mast-head, shrieks of terror fill the air, and the sea flings its strong, foam-wreathed arms against the farther shore.
A dead silence follows. The smoke scatters, breaks into drifting fragments, showing the black naked mountain-side.
The next morning, as the first glimmerings of the dawn pierced the cloud-veil in the east, the brig Queen Anne shot before a steady breeze out toward the western ocean. In the prow stood Maurice Fern, in a happy reverie; on a coil of rope at his feet sat Tharald Ormgrass, staring vacantly before him. His face was cold and hard; it had scarcely stirred from its dead apathy since the hour of the calamity. Then there was a patter of light footsteps on the deck, and Elsie, still with something of the child-like wonder of sleep in her eyes, emerged from behind the broad white sail.
Tharald saw her and the hardness died out of his face. He strove to speak once—twice, but could not.
"God pity me," he broke out, with an emotion deeper than his words suggested. "I was wrong. I had no faith in you. She has. Take her, that the old wrong may at last be righted."
And there, under God's free sky, their hands were joined together, and the father whispered a blessing.
Victor Julien St. Denis Dannevig is a very aristocratic conglomeration of sound, as every one will admit, although the St. had a touch of irony in it unless placed before the Julien, where in the present case its suggestion was not wholly unappropriate. As he was when I first met him, his nature seemed to be made up of exquisite half-tints, in which the most antagonistic tastes might find something to admire. It presented no sharp angles to wound your self-esteem or your prejudices. Morally, intellectually, and physically, he was as smooth as velvet, and as agreeable to the touch. He never disagreed with you, whatever heterodox sentiments you might give vent to, and still no one could ever catch him in any positive inconsistency or self-contradiction. The extreme liberal who was on terms of intimacy with the nineteenth century, and passionately hostile to all temporal and spiritual rulers, put him down as a rising man, who might be confidently counted on when he should have shed his down and assume I his permanent colors; and the prosperous conservative who had access to the private ear of the government lauded his good sense and his moderate opinions, and resolved to press his name at the first vacancy that might occur in the diplomatic service. In fact, every one parted from him with the conviction that at heart he shared his sentiments; even though for prudential reasons he did not choose to express himself with emphasis.
The inference, I am afraid, from all this, is that Dannevig was a hypocrite; but if I have conveyed that impression to any one, I certainly have done my friend injustice. I am not aware that he ever consciously suspended his convictions for the sake of pleasing; but convictions require a comparative depth of soil in order to thrive, and Dannevig's mind was remarkable for territorial expanse rather than for depth. Of course, he did with astonishing ease assume the color of the person he was talking with; but this involved, with him, no conscious mental process, no deliberate insincerity. It was rather owing to a kind of constitutional adaptability, an unconquerable distaste for quarrelling, and the absence of any decided opinions of his own.
It was in the year 186-, just as peace had been concluded between Prussia and Denmark, that I made Dannevig's acquaintance. He was then the hero of the day; all Copenhagen, as it seemed, had gone mad over him. He had just returned from the war, in which he had performed some extraordinary feat of fool-hardiness and saved seven companies by the sacrifice of his mustache. The story was then circulating in a dozen different versions, but, as nearly as I could learn, he had, in the disguise of a peasant, visited the Prussian camp on the evening preceding a battle and had acted the fool with such a perfection of art as to convince the enemy of his harmlessness. Before morning, however, he had furnished the Danish commander with important intelligence, thereby preventing the success of a surprise movement which the Prussians were about to execute. In return for this service he had been knighted on the battle-field, the order of Dannebrog having been bestowed upon him.
One circumstance that probably intensified the charm which Dannevig exerted upon the social circles of the Danish capital was the mystery which shrouded his origin. There were vague whisperings of lofty parentage, and even royal names were hinted at, always, of course, in the strictest privacy. The fact that he hailed from France (though no one could say it for a certainty) and still had a Danish name and spoke Danish like a native, was in itself looked upon as an interesting anomaly. Then again, his easy, aristocratic bearing and his finely carved face suggested all manner of romantic possibilities; his long, delicate hands, the unobtrusive perfection of his toilet and the very texture of his handkerchiefs told plainly enough that he had been familiar with high life from the cradle. His way of living, too, was the subject of much curious comment. Without being really extravagant, he still spent money in a free-and-easy fashion, and always gave one the impression of having unbounded resources, though no one could tell exactly what they were. The only solution of the riddle was that he might have access to the treasury of some mighty man who, for reasons which perhaps would not bear publicity, felt called upon to support him.
I had heard his name abundantly discussed in academical and social circles and was thoroughly familiar with the hypothetical part of his history before chance led me to make his personal acquaintance. He had then already lost some of his first lustre of novelty, and the professional yawners at club windows were inclining to the opinion that "he was a good enough fellow, but not made of stuff that was apt to last." But in the afternoon tea-parties, where ladies of fashion met and gently murdered each other's reputations, an allusion to him was still the signal for universal commotion; his very name would be greeted with clouds of ecstatic adjectives, and wild interjections and enthusiatic superlatives would fly buzzing about your ears until language would seem to be at its last gasp, and for a week to come the positive and comparative degrees would be applicable only to your enemies.
It was an open secret that the Countess von Brehm, one of the richest heiresses in the kingdom, was madly in love with him and would probably bestow her hand upon him in defiance of the wishes and traditions of her family. And what man, outside of the royal house, would be fool enough to refuse the hand of a Countess von Brehm?
During the winter 1865-66, I met Dannevig frequently at clubs, student festivals, and social gatherings, and his melodious voice, his epigrammatic talk, and his beauty never failed to extort from me a certain amount of reluctant admiration. I could not help noticing, however, that his charming qualities were all very much on the surface, and as for his beauty, it was of a purely physical kind. As a mere animal he could not have been finer. His eyes were as pure and blue and irresponsible as a pair of spring violets, and his face was as clean-cut and perfect as an ideal Greek mask, and as devoid of spiritual meaning. His animation was charmingly heedless and genuine, but nevertheless was mere surface glitter and never seemed to be the expression of any really strong and heartfelt emotion. I could well imagine him pouting like Achilles over the loss of a lovely Briseis and bursting into vituperative language at the sight of the robber; but the very moment Briseis was restored his wrath would as suddenly have given way to the absolute bliss of possession.
The evening before my final departure from Copenhagen he gave a little party for me at his apartments, at which a dozen or more of our friends were invited.
I must admit that he was an admirable host. Without appearing at all to exert himself, he made every one feel at his ease, filled up every gap in the conversation with some droll anecdote or personal reminiscence, and still contrived to make us all imagine that we were entertaining instead of being entertained. The supper was a miracle of culinary skill, and the wines had a most refined and aristocratic flavor. He ate and drank with the deliberation and relish of a man who, without being exactly a gourmand, nevertheless counted the art of dining among the fine arts, and prided himself on being something of a connoisseur. Nothing, I suppose, could have ruined me more hopelessly in his estimation than if I had betrayed unfamiliarity with table etiquette,—if, for instance, I poured Rhine wine into the white glasses, or sherry or Madeira into the blue.
As the hours of the night advanced, Dannevig's brilliancy rose to an almost dangerous height, which, as it appeared to us, could end in nothing short of an explosion. And the explosion came at last in the shape of a speech which I shall quote as nearly as the long lapse of years will permit.
After some mysterious pantomimic play directed toward a singularly noiseless and soft-mannered butler, our host arose, assumed an attitude as if he were about to address the universe, and spoke as follows:
"Gentlemen! As our distinguished friend here (all Americans, as you are aware, are born sovereigns and accordingly distinguished) is about to leave us, the spirit moves me to give voice to the feeling which animates us all at this peculiar juncture of events." (Here the butler returned with two bottles, which Dannevig seized and held up for general inspection.) "Bravo! here I hold in my hand a rare and potent juice, the condensed essence of all that is rich and fair and sweet in the history, character, and climate of la belle France, a juice for which the mouths of princes have often watered in vain—in short a bottle of Château Yquem. I have my reasons for plucking the fairest bloom of my cellar on an occasion like this: for what I am about to say is not entirely in the nature of a compliment, and the genial influence of this royal wine will be needed to counteract the possible effects of my speech. In other words, I want the goodness of my wine to compensate for the rudeness of my intended remarks.
"America has never until now had the benefit of my opinion of her, which may in part account for the crudeness of her present condition. Now she has sent a competent emissary to us, who will return and faithfully report my sentiments, and if he does his work well, you may be prepared for revolutions beyond the Atlantic in decades to come. To begin with the beginning: the American continent, extending as it does from pole to pole, with a curious attenuation in the middle, always looked to me in my boyhood as a huge double bag flung across the back of the world; the symbolic sense of this form was not then entirely clear to me; but now, I think, I divine its meaning. As the centuries with their changing civilizations rolled over Europe, it became apparent to the Almighty that a spacious lumber-room was needed, where all the superfluous odds and ends that no longer fitted to the changed order of things might be stowed away for safe-keeping. Now, as you will frequently in a lumber-room, amid a deal of absolute dross, stumble upon an object of rare and curious value, so also in America you may, among heaps of human trumpery, be startled by the sparkle of a genuine human jewel. Our friend here, I need not add, is such a jewel, though cut according to the fashion of the last century, when men went wild over liberty and other illusory ideals and when, after having exhausted all the tamer kinds of dissipation, they amused themselves by cutting each other's heads off. Far be it from me to impute any such truculent taste to my honored guest. I only wish to observe that the land from which he hails has not yet outlived the revolutionary heresies of a century ago, that his people is still afflicted with those crude fever fantasies, of which Europe was only cured by a severe and prolonged bleeding. It has always been a perplexing problem to me, how a man who has seen the Old World can deliberately choose such a land as his permanent abode. I, for my part, should never think of taking such a step until I had quarrelled with all the other countries of the world, one by one, and as life is too short for such an experience, I never expect to claim the hospitality of Brother Jonathan under his own roof.
"As regards South America, I never could detect its use in the cosmic economy, unless it was flung down there in the southern hemisphere purely as ballast, to prevent the globe from upsetting.
"Now, the moral of these edifying remarks is that I would urge my guest to correct, as soon as possible, the mistake he made in the choice of his birthplace. As a man never can be too circumspect in the selection of his parents, so neither can he exercise too much caution in the choice of his country. My last word to thee is: 'Fold thy tent, and pitch it again where mankind, politics and cookery are in a more advanced state of development.' Friends, let us drink to the health of our guest, and wish for his speedy return."
I replied with, perhaps, some superfluous ardor to this supercilious speech, and a very hot discussion ensued. When the company finally broke up, Dannevig, fearing that he had offended me, laid his arm confidentially on my shoulder, drew me back from the door, and pushed me gently into an easy-chair.
"Look here!" he said, planting himself in front of me. "It will never do for you and me to part, except as friends. I did not mean to patronize you, and if my foolish speech impressed you in that way, I beg you to forgive me."
He held out his long, beautiful hand, which after some hesitation I grasped, and peace was concluded.
"Take another cigar," he continued, throwing himself down on a damask-covered lounge opposite me. "I am in a confiding mood to-night, and should like to tell you something. I feel an absolute need to unbosom myself, and Fate points to you as the only safe receptacle of my confidence. After to-morrow, the Atlantic will be between us, and if my secret should prove too explosive for your reticence, your indiscretion will do me no harm. Listen, then. You have probably heard the town gossip connecting my name with that of the Countess von Brehm."
I nodded assent.
"Well, my modesty forbids me to explain how far the rumor is true. But, the fact is, she has given me the most unmistakable proofs of her favor. Of course, a man who has seen as much of the world as I have cannot be expected to reciprocate such a passion in its sentimental aspects; but from its—what shall I say?"
"Say, from a financial point of view it is not unworthy of your consideration," I supplied, unable to conceal my disgust.
"Well, yes," he resumed blandly, "you have hit it. However, I am by no means blind to her fascination. Moreover, the countess has a latent vein of fierceness in her nature which in time may endear her to my heart. Last night, for instance, we were at a ball at the Baron P——'s, and we danced together incessantly. While we were whirling about to the rhythm of an intoxicating melody, I, feeling pretty sure of my game, whispered half playfully in her ear: 'Countess, what would you say, if I should propose to you?' 'Propose and you will see,' she answered gravely, while those big black eyes of hers flashed at until I felt half ashamed of my flippancy. Of course I did not venture to put the question then and there, although I was sorely tempted. Now that shows that she has spirit, to say the least. What do you think?"
"I think," I answered, with emphasis, "that if I were a friend of the Countess von Brehm I should go to her to-morrow and implore her to have nothing to do with you."
"By Jove," he burst forth, laughing; "if I were a friend of the countess, I should do the very same thing; but being her lover, I cannot be expected to take such a disinterested view of the case. Moreover, my labor would be thrown away; for, entre nous, she is too much in love with me."
I felt that if I stayed a moment longer we should inevitably quarrel. I therefore rose, somewhat abruptly, and pulled on my overcoat, averring that I was tired and should need a few hours of sleep before embarking in the morning.
"Well," he said, shaking my hand heartily, as we parted in the hall, "if ever you should happen to visit Denmark again, you must promise me that you will look me up. You have a standing invitation to my future estate."
Some three years later I was sitting behind my editorial desk in a newspaper office in Chicago, and the impressions from my happy winter in Copenhagen had well nigh faded from memory. The morning mail was brought in, and among my letters I found one from a Danish friend with whom I had kept up a desultory correspondence. In the letter I found the following paragraph:
"Since you left us, Dannevig has been going steadily down hill, until at last his order of Dannebrog just managed to keep him respectable. About a month ago he suddenly vanished from the social horizon, and the rumor says that he has fled from his numerous creditors, and probably now is on his way to America. His resources, whatever they were, gradually failed him, while his habits remained as extravagant as ever. If the popular belief is to be credited, he lived during the two last years on his prospect of marrying the Countess von Brehm, which prospect in Copenhagen was always convertible into cash. The countess, by the way, was unflinching in her devotion to him, and he would probably long ago have led her to the altar, if her family had not so bitterly opposed him. The old count, it is said, swore that he would disinherit her if she ever mentioned his name to him again; and those who know him feel confident that he would have kept his word. The countess, however, was quite willing to make that sacrifice, for Dannevig's sake; but here, unfortunately, that cowardly prudence of his made a fool of him. He hesitated and hesitated long enough to wear out the patience of a dozen women less elevated and heroic than she is. Now the story goes that the old count, wishing at all hazards to get him out of the way, made him a definite proposition to pay all his debts, and give him a handsome surplus for travelling expenses, if he would consent to vanish from the kingdom for a stated term of years. And according to all appearances Dannevig has been fool enough to accept the offer. I should not be surprised if you would hear from him before long, in which case I trust you will keep me informed of his movements. A Knight of Dannebrog, you know, is too conspicuous a figure to be entirely lost beneath the waves of your all-levelling democracy. Depend upon it, if Dannevig were stranded upon a desert isle, he would in some way contrive to make the universe aware of his existence. He has, as you know, no talent for obscurity; there is a spark of a Cæsar in him, and I tremble for the fate of your constitution if he stays long enough among you."
Four months elapsed after the receipt of this letter, and I had almost given up the expectation (I will not say hope) of seeing Dannevig, when one morning the door to my office was opened, and a tall, blonde-haired man entered. With a certain reckless grace, which ought to have given me the clue to his identity, he sauntered up to my desk and extended his hand to me.
"Hallo, old boy!" he said, with a weak, weary smile. "How are you prospering? You don't seem to know me."
"Heavens!" I cried, "Dannevig! No, I didn't know you. How you have altered!"
He took off his hat, and flung himself into a chair opposite me. His large, irresponsible eyes fixed themselves upon mine, with a half-daring, half-apologetic look, as if he were resolved to put the best face on a desperate situation. His once so ambitious mustache drooped despondingly, and his unshaven face had an indescribably withered and dissipated look. All the gloss seemed to have been taken off it, and with it half its beauty and all its dignity had departed.
"Dannevig," I said, with all the sympathy I had at my command, "what has happened to you? Am I to take your word for it, that you have quarrelled with all the world, and that this is your last refuge?"
"Well," he answered, evasively, "I should hardly say that. It is rather your detestable democratic cookery which has undone me. I haven't had a decent meal since I set my foot on this accursed continent. There is an all-pervading plebeian odor of republicanism about everything one eats here, which is enough to ruin the healthiest appetite, and a certain barbaric uniformity in the bill of fare which would throw even a Diogenes into despair. May the devil take your leathery beef-steaks, as tough as the prose of Tacitus, your tasteless, nondescript buckwheats, and your heavy, melancholy wines, and I swear it would be the last you would hear of him!"
"There! that will do, Dannevig!" I cried, laughing. "You have said more than enough to convince me of your identity. I do admit I was sceptical as to whether this could really be you, but you have dispelled my last doubts. It was my intention to invite you to dine with me to-day but you have quite discouraged me. I live quite en garçon, you know, and have no Château Yquem nor pheasant à la Sainte Alliance, and whatever else your halcyon days at the Café Anglais may have accustomed you to."
"Never mind that. Your company will in part reconcile me to the republicanism of your table. And, to put the thing bluntly, can you lend me thirty dollars? I have pawned my only respectable suit of clothes for that amount, and in my present costume I feel inexpressibly plebeian,—very much as if I were my own butler, and—what is worse—I treat myself accordingly. I never knew until now how much of the inherent dignity of a man can be divested with his clothing. Then another thing: I am absolutely forced to do something, and, judging by your looks, I should say that journalism was a profitable business. Now, could you not get me some appointment or other in connection with your paper? If, for instance, you want a Paris correspondent, then I am just your man. I know Paris by heart, and I have hobnobbed with every distinguished man in France."
"But we could hardly afford to pay you enough to justify you in taking the journey on our account."
"O sancta simplicitas! No, my boy, I have no such intention. I can make up the whole thing with perfect plausibility, here under your own roof; and by little study of the foreign telegrams, I would undertake to convince Thiers and Jules Favre themselves that I watched the play of their features from my private box at the French opera, night before last, that I had my eye at the key-hole while they performed their morning ablutions, and was present as eavesdropper at their most secret councils. Whatever I may be, I hope you don't take me to be a chicken."
"No," I answered, beguiled into a lighter mood by his own levity. "It might be well for you if you were more of one. But as Paris correspondent, we could never engage you, at least not on the terms you propose. But even if I should succeed in getting a place for you, do you know English enough to write with ease?"
"I see you are disposed to give vent to your native scepticism toward me. But I never knew the thing yet that I could not do. At first, perhaps, I should have to depend somewhat upon your proof-reading, but before many months, I venture to say, I could stand on my own legs."
After some further parley it was agreed that I should exert myself in his behalf, and after a visit to the pawnbroker's, where Dannevig had deposited his dignity, we parted with the promise to meet again at dinner.
It was rather an anomalous position for a knight of Dannebrog, a familiar friend of princes and nobles, and an ex-habitué of the Café Anglais, to be a common reporter on a Chicago republican journal. Yet this was the position to which (after some daring exploits in book-reviewing and art criticism) my friend was finally reduced. As an art-critic, he might have been a success, if western art had been more nearly in accord with his own fastidious and exquisitely developed taste. As it was, he managed in less than a fortnight to bring down the wrath of the whole artistic brotherhood upon our journal, and as some of these men were personal friends of the principal stockholders in the paper, his destructive ardor was checked by an imperative order from the authorities, from whose will there is no appeal. As a book-reviewer he labored under similar disadvantages; he stoutly maintained that the reading of a volume would necessarily and unduly bias the critic's judgment, and that a man endowed with a keen, literary nose could form an intelligent opinion, after a careful perusal of the title-page, and a glance at the preface. A man who wrote a book naturally labored under the delusion that he was wiser or better than the majority of his fellow-creatures, in which case you would do moral service by convincing him of his error, inhumanity continued to encourage authorship at the present rate, obscurity would soon become a claim to immortality. If a writer informed you that his work "filled a literary void," his conceit was reprehensible, and on moral grounds he ought to be chastised; if he told you that he had only "yielded to the urgent request of his friends," it was only fair to insinuate that his friends must have had very long ears. Nevertheless, Dannevig's reviews were for about a month a very successful feature of our paper. They might be described as racy little essays, bristling with point and epigram, on some subject suggested by the title-pages of current volumes. At the end of that time, however, books began to grow scarce in our office, and before another month was at an end, we had no more need of a reviewer. My friend was then to have his last trial as a reporter.
One of his first experiences in this new capacity was at a mass-meeting preceding an important municipal election. Not daring to send his "copy" to the printer without revision, I determined to sacrifice two or three hours' sleep, and to await his return. But the night wore on, the clock struck twelve, one, and two, and no Dannevig appeared. I began to grow anxious; our last form went to press at four o'clock, and I had left a column and a half open for his expected report. Not wishing to resort to dead matter, I hastily made some selections from a fresh magazine, and sent them to the foreman.
The next day, about noon, a policeman brought me the following note, written in pencil, on a leaf torn from a pocket-book.