"Besides, I am not sure that my life is safe here any more," he said smilingly. "Did you tell my friend Ole how I acted?"
"It is never too late to do that," she said.
They told the driver to stop. They walked ahead, talking gaily and happily. He asked her to forgive him his rashness—not that he wanted her to think that he had forgotten her, or could forget her.
"I love you," he confessed, "but I know it is useless. I have now one thing left—my pen. I may write a verse or two to you; you must not be angry if I do. Well, time will tell. In a hundred years everything will be forgotten."
"I am powerless to change anything," she said.
"No, you are not. It depends, of course—At least, there is nobody else who can." And he added quickly: "You told me to give you a little time, you asked me to wait—what did you mean by that?"
"Nothing," she answered.
They walked on. They came into a field. Irgens spoke entertainingly about the far, blue, pine-clad ridges, about a tethered horse, a workingman who was making a fence. Aagot was grateful; she knew he did this in order to maintain his self-control; she appreciated it. He even said with a shy smile that if she would not think him affected he would like to jot down a couple of stanzas which just now occurred to him. And he jotted down the couple of stanzas.
She wanted to see what he wrote. She bent toward him and asked him laughingly to let her see.
If she really wanted to! It was nothing much, though.