“I love her. She cannot bore me.”
“Rahal Ragnor?”
“I respect her. She does not bore me––often.”
“Yes, that is so; it is but seldom thou sees her. Well, then, Barbara Brodie?”
“I once loved her. She can never be indifferent to me.”
“Thou hast told me the truth and I will not follow up this catechism.”
“For that favour, I am thy debtor. I might not always have been so truthful. Now, then, be honest with me. What wilt thou do all the summer, with no lover to wait on thy whims and fancies?”
“On thee I shall rely. Where thou goes, I will go, and if thou stay at home, with thee I will stay. Thou can read to me. I have never heard any of our great Sagas and that is a shame. I complain of that neglect in my education! I heard Maximus Grant recite from ‘The Banded Men and Haakon the Good,’ when I was in Edinburgh, and I said to myself, ‘how much finer is this, than opera songs, sung with a Scotch burr, in the Italian; or than English songs, sung by Scotch people who pronounce English after the Scotch fashion!’ Then I made up my mind that this coming winter I would let Edinburgh drawing-rooms hear the songs of Norse warriors; the songs in which the armour rattles and the swords shine!”
“That, indeed, will befit thee! Now, then, for the summer, keep thyself well in hand. Say nothing of thy plans, for if but once the wind catches them, they will soon be for every one to talk to death.”