“As soon would I that you were a coward as a churl! Churl’s blood—Rolf’s blood—that must be what it is! Freya’s stock would have struck the words from his lips though he were thrice a jarl. Now better be a coward than a clod, too base to know it when you are insulted.”
This time the color that rose to his face remained there, a darkling shade. From under lowering lids he stood looking at her.
“If you would not have me show churl’s blood by losing temper with you,” he said presently, “I ask you to stop talking about this happening. So soon as Helvin got himself in hand again, he made atonement; and that is an end to the matter. What lies on you, who say you love me, is to have faith in my manfulness. And I ask you, moreover, to remember that you are fretting a churl who has already been galled to the quick.”
She greeted the warning as a Valkyria might greet a sign that her opponent is aroused. In her governed voice was the thrill of a trumpet.
“Lose your temper, then, as fast as you may,—and so find your pride! Half-way, I think it is good-nature that makes you bend to him; and half-way, gratefulness for the favors you have taken from him; though you have long known what my wish is, that you should never look to any one else than to me when you stand in need of anything.”
Her satin-shod foot stirred with an angry impulse. “A fine atonement that is given in secret, while he chose that time when you were under the eyes of your enemy to put shame upon you! Can you not understand, Rolf’s son, that you drag me down in your disgrace, since I have done you the honor to promise to wed you? If you have no pride for yourself—for Freya’s name—make some for me, that it be not told around that the man I hold highest in honor is a man Starkad’s son uses like a thrall!”
The Songsmith opened his compressed lips wide enough to let a question through: “Is this a sample of the honor you hold me in?”
“It is the kindest treatment you will ever receive from me until you have wiped out this stain,” she told him.
Then because he did not reply to her, but folding his arms across his breast, turned as though to leave her, she blazed out at him:
“The end of this shall be that you take your choice of two things! Either you go to him and renounce his service, or else you go from me and renounce the hope that I shall ever call you husband.”