“Robin,” said Mrs. Boniface, one evening, to her husband, as together they paced to and fro in the veranda, while Frithiof was being initiated into lawn-tennis in the garden, “I think Sigrid Falck is one of the sweetest girls I ever saw.”
“So thinks some one else, if I am not much mistaken,” he replied.
“Then you, too, have noticed it. I am so glad. I hoped it was so, but could not feel sure. Oh, Robin, I wonder if he has any chance? She would make him such a sweet little wife!”
“How can we tell that she has not left her heart in Norway?”
“I do not think so,” said Mrs. Boniface. “No, I feel sure that can’t be, from the way in which she speaks of her life there. If there is any rival to be feared it is Frithiof. They seem to me wrapped up in each other, and it is only natural, too, after all their trouble and separation and this illness of his. How strong he is getting again, and how naturally he takes to the game! He is such a fine-looking fellow, somehow he dwarfs every one else,” and she glanced across to the opposite side of the lawn, where Roy with his more ordinary height and build certainly did seem somewhat eclipsed. And yet to her motherly eyes that honest, open, English face, with its sun-burned skin, was perhaps the fairest sight in the world.
Not that she was a blindly and foolishly loving mother; she knew that he had his faults. But she knew, too, that he was a sterling fellow, and that he would make the woman he married perfectly happy.
They were so taken up with thoughts of the visible romance that was going on beneath their eyes, that it never occurred to them to think of what might be passing in the minds of the two on the other side of the net. And perhaps that was just as well, for the picture was a sad one, and would certainly have cast a shadow upon their hearts. Cecil was too brave and resolute and self-controlled to allow her love to undermine her health; nor did she so brood upon her inevitable loss that she ceased to enjoy the rest of her life. There was very much still left to her, and though at times everything seemed to her flavorless and insipid, yet the mood would pass, and she would be able intensely to enjoy her home life. Still there was no denying that the happiness which seemed dawning for Roy and Sigrid was denied to the other two; they were handicapped in the game of life just as they were at tennis—the setting sun shone full in their faces and made the play infinitely more difficult, whereas the others playing in the shady courts had a considerable advantage over them.