She interrupted him, reaching out her hand for the cross as she spoke.
"That was my mother's crucifix," she said in solemn, infinitely tender accents, with a mist as of unshed tears in her sweet blue eyes. "It was round her neck when she died. I knew I had lost it, and was very unhappy about it. I do thank you with all my heart for bringing it back to me!"
And the hauteur of her face relaxed, and her smile--that sudden sweet smile of hers,--shone forth like a gleam of sunshine athwart a cloud.
Mr. Dyceworthy's breath came and went with curious rapidity. His visage grew pale, and a clammy dew broke out upon his forehead. He took the hand she held out,--a fair, soft hand with a pink palm like an upcurled shell,--and laid the little cross within it, and still retaining his hold of her, he stammeringly observed-"Then we are friends, Fröken Thelma! . . . good friends, I hope?"
She withdrew her fingers quickly from his hot, moist clasp, and her bright smile vanished.
"I do not see that at all!" she replied frigidly. "Friendship is very rare. To be friends, one must have similar tastes and sympathies,--many things which we have not,--and which we shall never have. I am slow to call any person my friend."
Mr. Dyceworthy's small pursy mouth drew itself into a tight thin line.
"Except," he said, with a suave sneer, "except when 'any person' happens to be a rich Englishman with a handsome face and easy manners! . . . then you are not slow to make friends, Fröken,--on the contrary, you are remarkably quick!"
The cold haughty stare with which the girl favored him might have frozen a less conceited man to a pillar of ice.
"What do you mean?" she asks abruptly, and with an air of surprise.
The minister's little ferret-like eyes, drooped under their puny lids, and he fidgeted on the seat with uncomfortable embarrassment. He answered her in the mildest of mild voices.
"You are unlike yourself, my dear Fröken!" he said, with a soothing gesture of one of his well-trimmed white hands. "You are generally frank and open, but to-day I find you just a little,--well!--what shall I say--secretive! Yes, we will call it secretive! Oh, fie!" and Mr. Dyceworthy laughed a gentle little laugh; "you must not pretend ignorance of what I mean! All the neighborhood is talking of you and the gentleman you are so often seen with. Notably concerning Sir Philip Errington,--the vile tongue of rumor is busy,--for, according to his first plans when his yacht arrived here, he was bound for the North Cape,--and should have gone there days ago. Truly, I think,--and there are others who think also in the same spirit of interest for you,--that the sooner this young man leaves our peaceful Fjord the better,--and the less he has to do with the maidens of the district, the safer we shall be from the risk of scandal." And he heaved a pious sigh.