All this Theo Trist must have recognised as he paced by Brenda’s side when the evening shadows crept down into the deeper valleys. The sun was hidden by a high range of hills to the northwest, and everything on the northern shore of the fjord was softly wrapt in a shimmering blue haze. The sea was very dark and lonesome, scarce rippled by the dying wind. Heavy gray clouds were catching on the mountaintops all round, and seemed to cling sullenly to the land, creeping lower with the shadows. It could not be that Trist was ignorant of the girl’s position. It was not thoughtlessness, because whatever this man’s faults may have been, no one could, or ever did, accuse him of want of consideration for the feelings of others. But for some reason he never uttered one word of sympathy to Brenda. Already some vague shadow of war seemed to have fallen over his softer manner. He had learnt to respect the call of duty at the best school; in this respect he was a true soldier, with all a soldier’s blind uncomplaining obedience to orders.
Years afterwards, when Brenda recalled the memory of that evening (and every detail of it was as clear as day), there came to her an indefinite understanding. In her own heart she had knowledge then of his motive, and she wondered a little over it. Few men, reflected she, would have divined that sympathy was the only thing she could not have borne just then. That it was not thoughtlessness she knew at the time, although she moved and lived and acted in a mechanical, unthinking way, without pausing to seek motives or assign reasons. There was sufficient evidence of Trist’s forethought at every turn, and silent testimony to his powers of organization. Captain Barrow was a good sailor and an honest man—an ideal sailing-master for Admiral Wylie’s yacht—but beyond that the old man’s capabilities were limited. The clearest brain and brightest male intellect on board lived behind the steward’s grave eyes, and to these two men Trist gave, in his gentle way, such instructions as he thought they needed.
During the voyage home Brenda was, so to speak, always running against Theo Trist. In her intercourse with Captain Barrow or the steward, she invariably found herself in some degree forestalled by the man who was already many miles away. “Yes, miss, Mr. Trist said we was to do that if …” etc., etc., or, “Ay, Miss Brenda, Mr. Trist thought the same.” Such remarks were the common reception offered to her most brilliant strokes of management, and, strange to say, she did not appear to resent this preconceived interference. This was the first vessel she had commanded, and there was a certain sense of comfort in meeting, as it were, with this opinion which coincided with her own. In a sense the responsibility was still shared, and if the result seemed to insinuate that another course might in some cases have been wiser, there was always the satisfaction of looking back and laying a share of the blame upon that silent acquiescence. This was something of the same spirit (an intensely human one it is) that prompts the cook to refer triumphantly to the work of Mrs. Beeton when the pudding turns out a failure.
But Trist did not consider it necessary to tell her of his arrangements made for her future benefit. Such reference would naturally have led to the question of his approaching departure for the seat of war, and this question was untasteful to him just then.
“And now, Brenda,” he said about eleven o’clock that evening, when the Hermione was creeping onward between the dismal ranges of bare hill and rock that border the Sognfjord—“and now, Brenda, go to bed. You have had a hard time of it since Wednesday. We cannot reach Gudvangen before two o’clock tomorrow morning, and it is mere folly for you to stay up any longer. Say … goodbye … and go to bed!”
In the gray twilight her sweet face changed suddenly. Her cheeks lost all colour, and a peculiar ashen-gray hue fell upon her motionless features, while into her eyes there came such a look of horror that Trist, seeing it, was struck dumb. In a peculiar mechanical way they continued to walk side by side. She seemed to experience some difficulty in breathing, for the muscles of her round white throat moved hurriedly at short intervals. He stared straight in front of him with a dull, vacant expression in his eyes, while his stern mouth was twisted slightly to one side.
At last, just as they were turning amidships to walk aft, she spoke without raising her eyes, and her articulation was slightly muffled.
“I would rather stay on deck, but … do you want me to go?”
“No.—Stay!”
After a short silence she spoke again, in quite a different tone.
“I suppose,” she said, “that you can form no idea yet of what you are going to—how long it will last, and who will be victorious.”
“Turkey,” he replied guardedly, “will probably win. I do not imagine that there will be much for me to do. It all depends upon how soon Turkey gets to work. What is wanting in strategical skill will be made up in bloodthirstiness, I should imagine.”
She shuddered, but made no reply.
“I may be back in a fortnight,” he added coolly, “and if Russia gets dragged into it, I may not get home for a year or two.”
“At all events, it will be a horrible war.”
“Probably.”
She laughed in a short, sarcastic way.
“You have already assumed the first coat of your mental and moral war-paint.”
“It is my trade, Brenda.”
“Then do
