"Nay, but she shall not remain here, prince," answered Polaris sharply and steadily. "She, too, wishes to be on the way, and no one may transport her across the bitter wilderness more safely than I, who know how and have the ready means to travel it."
Prince Helicon turned his eyes to Rose Emer. A flush mounted to his cheeks and his eyes glittered as he drank in her loveliness.
"How know I that the lady wishes to be so soon gone?" he asked. "It is in my mind that Helicon, Prince of Sardanes, might persuade her to remain, had I the words to talk to her in her own tongue."
He paused and seemed to consider. Polaris watched him with narrowing eyes, and in his anger would not answer lest he might say too much.
"Now, say thou to the lady," spoke Helicon with sudden decision, "that Helicon offers her the love of a prince and the half of the throne of Sardanes. Tell her, and be sure that thou dost translate aright, and her answer to me also."
Polaris's face was clouded, but he turned to Rose and repeated evenly to her the proposal of the prince.
Rose Emer paled and then flushed, and instinctively she rested her hand on the arm of her comrade.
"Say to the Prince Helicon that his words do me great honor, very great honor," she answered; "but I am an American girl, and am lonely for my own home and people. Now we are rested, and I wish to go, no matter what may be the risks. And tell him also that I cannot be his wife, because—because—I already am promised to another."
Under his anger and back of his spirit a cold hand clutched at the heart of the man of the snows, but he turned to the prince and repeated the words of the girl.