Ships That Pass in the Night Part 12

"I am sorry that I should have been such an unpleasant playmate," she said. "It was a good thing I did disappear."

"Perhaps it was," he said. "There would have been a terrible scene about that doll's head. An odd thing for me to dream about Christmas-trees and dolls and playmates: especially when I went to sleep thinking about my new camera."

"You have a new camera?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, "and a beauty, too. Would you like to see it?"

She expressed a wish to see it, and when they reached the Kurhaus, she went with him up to his beautiful room, where he spent his time in the company of his microscope and his chemical bottles and his photographic possessions.

"If you sit down and look at those photographs, I will make you some tea," he said. "There is the camera, but please not to touch it until I am ready to show it myself."

She watched him preparing the tea; he did everything so daintily, this Disagreeable Man. He put a handkerchief on the table, to serve for an afternoon tea-cloth, and a tiny vase of violets formed the centre-piece.

He had no cups, but he polished up two tumblers, and no housemaid could have been more particular, about their glossiness. Then he boiled the water and made the tea. Once she offered to help him; but he shook his head.

"Kindly not to interfere." he said grimly. "No one can make tea better than I can."

After tea, they began the inspection of the new camera, and Robert Allitsen showed her all the newest improvements. He did not seem to think much of her intelligence, for he explained everything as though he were talking to a child, until Bernardine rather lost patience.

"You need not enter into such elaborate explanations," she suggested.

"I have a small amount of intelligence, though you do not seem to detect it."

He looked at her as one might look at an impatient child.

"Kindly not to interrupt me," he replied mildly. "How very impatient you are! And how restless! What must you have been like before you fell ill?"

But he took the hint all the same, and shortened his explanations, and as Bernardine was genuinely interested, he was well satisfied. From time to time he looked at his old camera and at his companion, and from the expression of unease on his face, it was evident that some contest was going on in his mind. Twice he stood near his old camera, and turned round to Bernardine intending to make some remark. Then he chanced his mind, and walked abruptly to the other end of the room as though to seek advice from his chemical bottles. Bernardine meanwhile had risen from her chair, and was looking out of the window.

"You have a lovely view," she said. "It must be nice to look at that when you are tired of dissecting cheese-mites. All the same, I think the white scenery gives one a great sense of sadness and loneliness."

"Why do you speak always of loneliness?" he asked.

"I have been thinking a good deal about it," she said. "When I was strong and vigorous, the idea of loneliness never entered my mind. Now I see how lonely most people are. If I believed in G.o.d as a Personal G.o.d, I should be inclined to think that loneliness were part of his scheme: so that the soul of man might turn to him and him alone."

The Disagreeable Man was standing by his camera again: his decision was made.

"Don't think about those questions," he said kindly. "Don't worry and fret too much about the philosophy of life. Leave philosophy alone, and take to photography instead. Here, I will lend you my old camera."

"Do you mean that?" she asked, glancing at him in astonishment.

"Of course I mean it," he said.

He looked remarkably pleased with himself, and Bernardine could not help smiling.

He looked just as a child looks when he has given up a toy to another child, and is conscious that he has behaved himself rather well.

"I am very much obliged to you," she said frankly. "I have had a great wish to learn photography."

"I might have lent my camera to you before, mightn't I?" he said thoughtfully.

"No," she answered. "There was not any reason."

"No," he said, with a kind of relief, "there was not any reason. That is quite true!"

"When will you give me my first lesson?" she asked. "Perhaps, though, you would like to wait a few days, in case you change your mind."

"It takes me some time to make up my mind," he replied, "but I do not change it. So I will give you your first lesson to-morrow. Only you must not be impatient. You must consent to be taught; you cannot possibly know everything!"

They fixed a time for the morrow, and Bernardine went off with the camera; and meeting Marie on the staircase, confided to her the piece of good fortune which had befallen her.

"See what Herr Allitsen has lent me, Marie!" she said.

Marie raised her hands in astonishment.

"Who would have thought such a thing of Herr Allitsen?" said Marie.

"Why, he does not like lending me a match."

Bernardine laughed and pa.s.sed on to her room.

And the Disagreeable Man meanwhile was cutting a new scientific book which had just come from England. He spent a good deal of money on himself. He was soon absorbed in this book, and much interested in the diagrams.

Suddenly he looked up to the corner where the old camera had stood, before Bernardine took it away in triumph.

"I hope she won't hurt that camera," he said a little uneasily.

"I am half sorry that" . . .

Then a kinder mood took possession of him.

"Well, at least it will keep her from fussing and fretting and thinking.

Still, I hope she won't hurt it."

CHAPTER XIII.

A DOMESTIC SCENE.

ONE afternoon when Mrs. Reffold came to say good-bye to her husband before going out for the usual sledge-drive, he surprised her by his unwonted manner.

"Take your cloak off," he said sharply. "You cannot go for your drive this afternoon. You don't often give up your time to me; you must do so to-day."

She was so astonished, that she at once laid aside her cloak and hat, and touched the bell.

"Why are you ringing?" Mr. Reffold asked testily.

"To send a message of excuse," she answered, with provoking cheerfulness.