"In order that we may not be disillusioned, my friend," said Maas. "The starving man dreams of City banquets, and wakes to the unpleasant knowledge that it does not do to go to sleep on an empty stomach. The debtor imagines himself the possessor of millions, and wakes to find the man-in-possession seated by his bedside. But there is one cure; and you should adopt it, my dear Browne."
"What is that?"
"Marriage, my friend! Get yourself a wife and you will have no time to think of such things. Doesn't your Ben Jonson say that marriage is the best state for a man in general?"
"Marriage!" retorted Browne scornfully. "It always comes back to that. I tell you I have come to hate the very sound of the word. From the way people talk you might think marriage is the pivot on which our lives turn. They never seem to realise that it is the rock upon which we most of us go to pieces. What is a London season but a monstrous market, in which men and women are sold to the highest bidders, irrespective of inclination or regard? I tell you, Maas, the way these things are managed in what we call English society borders on the indecent. Lord A. is rich; consequently a hundred mothers offer him their daughters. He may be what he pleases – an honourable man, or the greatest blackguard at large upon the earth. In nine cases out of ten it makes little or no difference, provided, of course, he has a fine establishment and the settlements are satisfactory. At the commencement of the season the girls are brought up to London, to be tricked out, regardless of expense, by the fashionable dressmakers of the day. They are paraded here, there, and everywhere, like horses in a dealer's yard; are warned off the men who have no money, but who might very possibly make them happy; while they are ordered by the 'home authorities' to encourage those who have substantial bank balances and nothing else to recommend them. As the question of love makes no sort of difference, it receives no consideration. After their friends have sent them expensive presents, which in most cases they cannot afford to give, but do so in order that they may keep up appearances with their neighbours and tradesmen, the happy couple stand side by side before the altar at St. George's and take the most solemn oath of their lives; that done, they spend their honeymoon in Egypt, Switzerland, or the Riviera, where they are presented with ample opportunity of growing tired of one another. Returning to town, the man usually goes back to his old life and the woman to hers. The result is a period of mutual distrust and deceit; an awakening follows, and later on we have the cause célèbre, and, holding up our hands in horror, say, 'Dear me, how very shocking!' In the face of all this, we have the audacity to curl our lips and to call the French system unnatural!"
"I am afraid, dear Browne, you are not quite yourself to-night," said Maas, with a gentle little laugh, at the end of the other's harangue. "The mistake of believing that a marriage, with money on the side of the man and beauty on that of the woman, must irretrievably result in misfortune is a very common one. For my part, I am singular enough to believe it may turn out as well if not better than any other."
"I wasn't aware that optimism was your strong point," retorted Browne. "For my part I feel, after the quiet of this fjord, as if I could turn my back on London and never go near it again."
He spoke with such earnestness that Maas, for once in his life, was almost astonished. He watched his companion as he lit another cigar.
"One thing is quite certain," he said at length, "your walk this afternoon did you more harm than good. The fog must have got into your blood. And yet, if you will not think me impertinent for saying so, Miss Verney gave you a welcome such as many men would go through fire and water to receive."
Browne grunted scornfully. He was not going to discuss Miss Verney's opinion of himself with his companion. Accordingly he changed the subject abruptly by inquiring whether Maas had made any plans for the ensuing winter.
"I am a methodical man," replied the latter, with a smile at his companion's naive handling of the situation, "and all my movements are arranged some months ahead. When this charming voyage is at an end, and I have thanked you for your delightful hospitality, I shall hope to spend a fortnight with our dear Duchess in the Midlands; after that I am due in Paris for a week or ten days; then, like the swallow, I fly south; shall dawdle along the Mediterranean for three or four months, probably cross to Cairo, and then work my way slowly back to England in time for the spring. What do you propose doing?"
"Goodness knows," Browne replied lugubriously. "At first I thought of Rajputana; but I seem to have done, and to be tired of doing, everything. They tell me tigers are scarce in India. This morning I felt almost inclined to take a run out to the Cape and have three months with the big game."
"You said as much in the smoking-room last night, I remember," Maas replied. "Pray, what has occurred since then to make you change your mind?"
"I do not know, myself," said Browne. "I feel restless and unsettled to-night, that is all. Do you think I should care for Russia?"
"For Russia?" cried his companion in complete surprise. "What on earth makes you think of Russia?"
Browne shook his head.
"It's a notion I have," he answered; though, for my own part, I am certain that, until that moment, he had never thought of it. "Do you remember Demetrovitch, that handsome fellow with the enormous moustache who stayed with me last year at Newmarket?"
"I remember him perfectly," Maas replied; and had Browne been watching his face, instead of looking at the little hotel ashore, he would in all probability have noticed that a peculiar smile played round the corners of his mouth as he said it. "But what has Demetrovitch to do with your proposed trip to Russia? I had an idea that he was ordered by the Czar to spend two years upon his estates."
"Exactly! so he was. That accounts for my notion. He has often asked me to pay him a visit. Besides, I have never seen Petersburg in the winter, and I'm told it's rather good fun."
"You will be bored to death," the other answered. "If you go, I'll give you a month in which to be back in England. Now I think, with your permission, I'll retire. It's after eleven, and there's something about these fjords that never fails to make me sleepy. Good-night, mon cher ami, and pleasant dreams to you."
Browne bade him good-night, and when the other disappeared into the companion, returned to his contemplation of the shore. The night was so still that the ripple of the wavelets on the beach, half a mile or so away, could be distinctly heard. The men had left the smoking-room; and save the solitary figure of the officer on the bridge, and a hand forward by the cable range, Browne had the deck to himself. And yet he was not altogether alone, for his memory was still haunted by the recollection of the same sweet face, with the dark, lustrous eyes, that had been with him all the evening. Do what he would, he could not endow the adventure of the afternoon with the common-place air he had tried to bestow upon it. Something told him that it was destined to play a more important part in his life's history than would at first glance appear to be the case. And yet he was far from being a susceptible young man. The training he had received would have been sufficient to prevent that. For upwards of an hour he remained where he was, thinking and thinking, and yet never coming any nearer a definite conclusion. Then, throwing away what remained of his cigar, he bestowed a final glance upon the shore, and went below to his cabin, to dream, over and over again, of the adventure that had befallen him that afternoon.
Whatever else may have been said of it, the weather next morning was certainly not propitious; the mountains surrounding the bay were hidden in thick mist, and rain was falling steadily. After breakfast the male portion of the party adjourned to the smoking-room, while the ladies engaged themselves writing letters or with their novels in the drawing-room below.
Browne alone seemed in good spirits. While the others were railing at the fog, and idly speculating as to whether it would clear, he seemed to derive a considerable amount of satisfaction from it. About ten o'clock he announced his intention of going ashore, in order, he said, that he might confer with a certain local authority regarding their proposed departure for the south next day. As a matter of politeness he inquired whether any of his guests would accompany him, and received an answer in the