She seemed charmed with the idea. She drove her lord to his hiding, with a peremptory laughing injunction that he was not to issue therefrom until summoned by herself; she refused to linger a moment by his side in her excitement. Her eyes had never looked so heavenly-bright and blue.
At eve came the King, with a little brilliant retinue.
But Alse did not receive him. Instead there advanced and knelt at his feet one of the most radiant young beauties his eyes had ever encountered. The violet Saxon hood fell back from her face as she raised it, revealing a sun of little curls bound by a golden fillet. The slender lifted hands, the bright parted lips, most of all the eyes, blue as lazulite and wide with innocence, seemed all as if posed for a picture of Love’s ecstasy. The King, young, and lustful, and handsome, with his strong, clean-cut face, stood the speechless one.
“Welcome, lord King,” she said in a half-articulate voice, like a child murmuring a lesson.
He raised and kissed her. “Welcome, wife of Athelwold!” he said, and let out a sigh like a man restored from drowning.
But apart stood the dwarf, amazed and sorrowful.
“She hath deceived us,” he thought. “What is to be the end?”
That night was spent in feasting; and in the morning came Elfrida to her husband’s couch. Worn with fatigue and anxiety—since she had given orders that none was to approach him—he had fallen asleep at last.
“Up, up, my Thane!” she cried. “The King is bent on hunting, and awaits thee in the court. Say nothing. All goes well.”
She would not linger, lest, as she whispered, she should risk discovery; but, running from him, sought her bower. There listening, a hand upon her bosom, she heard the chase ride forth; and presently the dwarf stole in to her.