"That ring! Huh! You can keep it yourself."
"What's wrong with it, then?"
"Wrong with it? There's nothing wrong with it that I know," she answered, and got up to clear the table.
"Why, you'll needs make do with it for now," he said. "Maybe I'll manage another some day."
Barbro made no answer.
A thankless creature was Barbro this evening. A new silver ring—she might at least have thanked him nicely for it. It must be that clerk with the town ways that had turned her head. Axel could not help saying: "I'd like to know what that fellow Eleseus keeps coming here for, anyway. What does he want with you?"
"With me?"
"Ay. Is he such a greenhorn and can't see how 'tis with you now?
Hasn't he eyes in his head?"
Barbro turned on him straight at that: "Oh, so you think you've got a hold on me because of that? You'll find out you're wrong, that's all."
"Ho!" said Axel.