At last the whispering stopped, and Atli's step crossed the room and passed into the inner apartment. The door closed behind him, and then saying to himself, "Now or never, my friend," Helgi quietly slipped into his sheep-skin coat, and stepping softly so as not to disturb Estein or the seer, came boldly down the ladder.
The girl's look, as he turned at the foot and faced her, stuck in his mind for long after. Consternation and her sense of the ludicrous were having such an obvious struggle in every feature, that after looking straight into her face for a moment, he fairly burst into a silent convulsion of laughter that shook him till he had to steady himself by a rung of the ladder. So infectious was it, that after the briefest conflict, consternation fled the field, a little smile appeared, and then a merrier, and in a moment she was laughing with him. And certainly for a man commonly most careful of his appearance, he cut a comical enough figure, with his shoeless feet and tangled hair, and the great ill-fitting sheep-skin coat huddled round him to hide the poverty beneath.
"I fear my habit pleases not your eye," he said at last, striving to control his countenance.
"It is—" she began, and then her gravity for an instant forsook her again. "It is highly befitting," she said, more soberly and a little shyly.
"In truth, a garb to win a maiden's heart; but I recked not of my clothing, I was in such haste to see the maid," said Helgi boldly.
She looked at him with some surprise, and just a sufficient touch of dignity to check the dash of his advances. He saw the change, and quickly added,—
"To be quite honest with you, I knew not indeed that you were here, and feeling cold I came down to warm me. I should ask your pardon."
"Not so," she said; "how could you know that I was here? I have only just arrived."
"And I," replied Helgi, "leave early in the morning, though now I would fain stay longer. So you will soon forget the man in the sheepskin coat who so alarmed you."
"But not the coat," she said demurely, her blue eyes lighting up again. Helgi's vanity was a little stung, but he answered gaily,—