As she looked, he grew more and more handsome in her eyes, and she wondered how she could ever have fancied him larger or in any way different from what he was. She forgot her shyness and thought only of the eulogies of him she had heard. She saw him storming at the head of his troops, amid the exultant cries of the people. All fell back before him, as the waves are thrown off, when they rise frothing around the broad breast of a galleon. Cannon thundered, swords flashed, bullets whistled through dark clouds of smoke, but he pressed onward, brave and erect, and on his stirrup Victory hung—in the words of a chronicle she had read.
Her eyes shone upon him full of admiration and enthusiasm.
He made a sudden movement and met her gaze, but turned his head away, with difficulty repressing a triumphant smile. The next moment he rose as though he had just caught sight of Marie Grubbe.
Mistress Rigitze said this was her little niece, and Marie made her courtesy.
Ulrik Christian was astonished and perhaps a trifle disappointed to find that the eyes that had given him such a look were those of a child.
“Ma chère,” he said with a touch of mockery, as he looked down at her lace, “you’re a past mistress in the art of working quietly and secretly; not a sound have I heard from your bobbins in all the time I’ve been here.”
“No,” replied Marie, who understood him perfectly; “when I saw you, Lord Gyldenlöve,”—she shoved the heavy lace-maker’s cushion along the window-sill,—“it came to my mind that in times like these ’twere more fitting to think of lint and bandages than of laced caps.”
“Faith, I know that caps are as becoming in war-times as any other day,” he said, looking at her.
“But who would give them a thought in seasons like the present!”
“Many,” answered Ulrik Christian, who began to be amused at her seriousness, “and I for one.”