As soon as he got a chance to speak apart with the woman he knew, Hallvard asked her what maiden that might be. The woman told him; and then she managed it so that he should talk alone with Rodny, though the others stood near and spoke among themselves. And they talked together a long time; though sometimes there were silences between them, but neither of them seemed to mind that.
At last Hallvard said: “Many strange wonders have I seen abroad, yet the thing which seems strangest to me I see here in Iceland.”
“What is that?” says Rodny.
“It is that a maid like you should be unwed.”
“Oh!” says Rodny.
Hallvard said: “It is easily seen that you would be thrown away on any match you should make; yet that would not hinder me from trying my luck if you thought me good enough to ask for you.”
She was rather slow in answering that, but at last she spoke in a well-behaved way and said there could be no two minds about that since every one thought him a man of the greatest mark.
“I might be all that,” said Hallvard, “and still not be at all to your mind. I should be glad if you would say that you would have nothing in your heart against such a bargain.”
Then Rodny could no longer keep herself altogether in hand, and she began to laugh a little and said that he was hard to deal with, and that perhaps if she should say that she had nothing against the bargain, he might answer that that was too bad because he had no mind to it. But the end of her jesting was that she broke off without finishing, for he got red in his face again, and it could be seen that he was much in earnest.
“I should have thought that the risk as to that lay all on my side,” he said, “but now I will say right out that my life will never seem good to me again unless I get you to wife.”