"I'm sure my question was harmless enough," he mused, half crossly,
"She might have answered it."

He glanced out impatiently over the Fjord. There was no sign of his
returning yacht as yet.

"What a time those fellows are!" he said to himself. "If the pilot
were not on board, I should begin to think they had run the Eulalie
aground."

He finished his cigar and threw the end of it into the water; then
he stood moodily watching the ripples as they rolled softly up and
caressed the shining brown shore at his feet, thinking all the while
of that strange girl, so wonderfully lovely in face and form, so
graceful and proud of bearing, with her great blue eyes and masses
of dusky gold hair.

His meeting with her was a sort of adventure in its way--the first
of the kind he had had for some time. He was subject to fits of
weariness or caprice, and it was in one of these that he had
suddenly left London in the height of the season, and had started
for Norway on a yachting cruise with three chosen companions, one of
whom, George Lorimer, once an Oxford fellow-student, was now his
"chum"--the Pythias to his Damon, the fidus Achates of his closest
confidence. Through the unexpected wakening up of energy in the
latter young gentleman, who was usually of a most sleepy and
indolent disposition, he happened to be quite alone on this
particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accompanied
in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter