"If you think me bold, lady," he said, with raised brows, "you will think me too bold perhaps presently. Remember, when that time comes, that if a man sees his profit within his reach he is a fool if he don't stretch out his hand."
"He may be a fool," she said, "to think it so near." Her colour was high, her eyes shone. His own, narrowed and intense, held them.
"Do you know the name I give you in my private mind?" he asked her.
She shook her head.
"I call you Constant-Kind."
"And why do you call me that? Do you think I am kind to every one?"
"I think that you have been," said Karlsefne, "and I believe that you would not willingly deny a service if you could do it."
"And what service do you ask of me?"
"Ah, I ask none as yet. But maybe I shall."
Certainly she knew what he wanted, and wondered whether he was the man predicted. Thorberg had prophesied an ugly man for one of her husbands. That could not be said of Karlsefne. He was not handsome by any means, but so full of fun that he would pass anywhere as well-looking. She had no love to give him; all that was buried with her doomed Thorstan; and yet she could see life to be a very pleasant thing with him beside her—a warm, sheltered, pleasant thing. She was rather of Freydis's opinion after an experience of two kinds of life, that a woman was happier in being loved than in loving. She had not thought so when Thorstan was her lover. Then her triumph and pride had been that she could give him inexhaustibly what he needed—but look how that had ended. She said to herself: "He will be kind to me, because he is kind by nature. I believe that is my nature too. Therefore I can give him what he wants, and find some comfort in it. I have known the highest, and that is enough for me. That will never come again. Let the other suffice, if it will satisfy him." With that she put the thought away in her heart, wishing to leave it there; yet she could not resist taking it out and looking at it now and again. It was still good to be loved, good to be desired, good to be the centre of a man's thoughts. Every time she looked at her hoard it seemed a little brighter.
Karlsefne took his time. It was close upon the spring when he asked her if she would have him. She met his looks calmly, and told him what she felt about it. "I am not very old yet," she said, "but I have had a great deal of experience. I have been married twice, and loved deeply once. That can never be again."