"
Langberg sat for a while watching the other attentively. Peer sat
smoking slowly; his face was flushed with the wine, but from time to
time his eyes half-closed, and his thoughts seemed to be wandering in
other fields than these.
"And what do you think of doing now you are home again?" asked his
companion at last.
Peer opened his eyes. "Doing? Oh, I don't know. Look about me first of
all. Then perhaps I may find a cottar's croft somewhere and settle down
and marry a dairymaid. Here's luck!"
The gardens were full now of people in light summer dress, and in the
luminous evening a constant ripple of laughter and gay voices came up
to them. Peer looked curiously at the crowd, all strangers to him, and
asked his companion the names of some of the people. Langberg pointed
out one or two celebrities--a Cabinet Minister sitting near by, a famous
explorer a little farther off. "But I don't know them personally," he
added. "Can't afford society on that scale, of course."
"How beautiful it is here!" said Peer, looking out once more at the
yellow shimmer of light above the fjord. "And how good it is to be home
again!"
Chapter II
He sat in the train on his way up-country, and from the carriage window
watched farms and meadows and tree-lined roads slide past. Where was
he going? He did not know himself. Why should not a man start off at
haphazard, and get out when the mood takes him? At last he was able to
travel through his own country without having to think of half-pennies.
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