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.