Ragna. Anna Miller Costantini
Petersen grumbled to himself as he watched them.
"Pity the fellow is a Prince. Handsome couple they would make, handsome couple! After all, who knows, little Ragna is as pretty as a princess—he might do worse!"
Prince Mirko returned to him fumbling vainly in his pockets.
"Have you a match about you, Captain?" he asked, "I must have left my box below."
On a former occasion he had offered the Captain a cigarette from his case, but the old sea-dog had refused it, explaining that he would get no good out of a little paper stick, a pipe was the thing for him.
The Captain produced a box of matches and the Prince lit his cigarette. Seeing him disinclined for further conversation, the old sailor left him, and Mirko, leaning both elbows on the rail enjoyed his smoke while he reviewed the events of the evening. In his innermost heart he was a little ashamed of having given way to an impulse but then, he reflected complacently, there was no real harm done, and after all, what is a kiss? He was rather amazed at himself for giving the slightest importance to the occurrence. His thoughts turned again to Ragna.
"What a little witch it is, and as unsophisticated as a newborn babe; pretty, too, much too pretty, in the moonlight!" The fresh taste of her mouth came back to him, like a strawberry, just ripe, he thought, and the throbbing of her firm young bosom, as he had pressed her to him. What a mistress she would make! Then he laughed at himself—"What! take a mistress, a mere school girl at that, from the bosom of a respectable bourgeoise family! What a row there would be! No, my son," he admonished himself, "that game is not worth the candle!" He remembered too well the trouble subsequent to his latest escapade of the sort, and made a wry face. "No, no more luring of innocent maidens from their happy homes!" He thought of Ragna going to bed in her little cabin, and a wild desire came over him to follow her. The recollection of the kiss he had given her suddenly maddened him. His pulses beat strongly and rang in his ears. He must have her, he felt, must have her in spite of everything and he started towards the companion-way, but before he reached it shame seized him, and thrusting his hands savagely into his greatcoat pockets he strode up and down the deck, fighting the impulse.
"Am I lost to all sense of decency?" he murmured, "What has come over me?"
He walked until he was tired out, then went below and locked himself into his state-room.
Ragna, as soon as she reached her cabin, took down the oil lamp from its swinging bracket and carrying it to the small mirror studied her face. Was this creature with gleaming eyes, rosy cheeks, red mouth and loosened hair the prim little Ragna of but a few hours since? This looked more like the head of some young Bacchante, wine flushed and triumphant. Indeed the "Princess" slept no longer, the spell was broken and Ragna knew it. She replaced the lamp and undressed slowly, her thoughts running tumultuous riot. She was astonished at finding herself neither indignant nor ashamed—all that had passed. It seemed to her that she had entered upon a new life, a door had opened upon a heretofore unknown country, and many things came into perspective, that she had not understood before. She had crossed the dividing line, she was no longer a child, Eve had tasted of the apple.
As she lay in her berth some of the Prince's sayings came into her mind, "an oasis in the desert," "there is no to-morrow and no yesterday," and for the moment she hugged the thought, little dreaming how insidious it was to prove. Who was to tell her that some day Eve's apple would prove to be an Apple of Sodom? Carpe diem was the Prince's avowed motto, and was she already a convert and had she forgotten her own answer, "Somebody has to bear the consequences"? She was too young though, to realise that every act, no matter how insignificant, how detached apparently from the main trend of life, has far-reaching consequences, cropping out when we least expect them, bearing in their wake the most extraordinary changes.
How was she to know that the kiss on deck in the moonlight bore in it the seed of her future life. Her lips burned, and she felt, in imagination, the pressure of Mirko's arms about her—but at the same time she was curiously conscious that this was not love, or not yet. She felt, but could not define the distinction. Still she was not ashamed, being still borne up by the wave of elemental impulse; she had no room as yet for introspection and self blame—indeed they might never come. The timid, untried girl of yesterday had vanished, a new, passionate Ragna had taken her place.
CHAPTER V
Lars Andersen met his daughter at Molde. He seemed to have grown older, and his face had a care-worn look. "The Grandmother was ill," he said; "she had been ailing for some time, but now was bedfast and could not live long."
Though he was truly glad to welcome Ragna home again, his undemonstrative manner gave hardly a hint of it and the girl felt her joy at seeing him effectually repressed and chilled.
At dinner with her father and the Captain she sat almost silent until the old sailor rallied her on her dulness.
"You had more to say for yourself, Fröken, when the Prince was with us!"
"The Prince! What Prince?" asked Andersen.
"Prince Mirko of Montegria, who crossed with us from Hamburg to Christiansand, on his way to the Court of Russia." The Captain went on to give a roseate account of the Prince, his condescension, his amiability, and wound up with:
"Little Ragna entertained him as though she had been a court-lady, and you may well be proud of her!"
Andersen frowned; he knew more of men and of the ways of the world than did the good Captain, who in many respects was but a grown-up child, and he was displeased that his young and inexperienced daughter should have been thrown into such companionship with a strange young man, prince or no prince, as the Captain's account suggested.
Still, he did not wish to hurt the feelings of his old friend, and since it was over and done with, the less said about the matter, the better. Ragna, watching his face, guessed with newborn intuition the trend of his thoughts, and with feminine diplomacy changed the subject, leading the talk to her stay at the convent and entertaining the two men with a lively account of the nuns, and of her school-fellows.
Her father studied her with a clearing face.
"What a child it still is," he thought, "this Prince Mirko nonsense has rolled off her mind like water off a duck's back!" So he mused, and putting aside his cares, encouraged her to continue her chatter. The Captain was delighted to see his friend unbend, and joined his efforts to Ragna's to keep the ball rolling.
So the evening passed merrily enough and it was not till the girl was alone in her room that she let herself go. Rather scornfully she thought:
"Oh, yes, they all think me a child! I am nearly nineteen, and they think I have learned nothing but French verbs and embroidery. Well, let them think it, better so! But if they knew, if they could guess!"
She shook out her long golden hair—it fell nearly to her knees—she slipped out of her clothes and winding her long gauze scarf about her, looked at herself in the glass, turning this way and that. Her body, wonderfully white and firm had slight graceful curves like those of a young nymph. She played with her hair, draping it about her shoulders and bosom—truly this was a new Ragna! Then a sudden shame came over her; she put on her nightgown, and blowing out the candle, plunged into bed and lay blinking in the darkness. The thought she had had was not: "I am beautiful," but "He would think me beautiful."
"This must not go on," she said to herself. "You were a fool, Ragna, to let him kiss you—you are a fool to think about him at all. Why can't you let it be just an episode—as he said? Of course he was only playing with you. What do you suppose it meant to him to say a few complimentary things to a little country girl—and kiss her?" But she thought of the quiver in his deep voice, as he talked to her, on deck that last evening, the passionate vibration of it that had fascinated and stirred her, body and soul. She thought of his burning lips on hers and his arms straining her to him so closely that it hurt her. No, in that moment at least he