“You are not so old either,” she replied.
“I am as old as Simon Darre,” said he again. “And we bear helm and shield as well as the Dyfrin folk, but my folks have not had fortune with them—”
He had dried his hands on the grass tufts; and now he took Kristin’s ankle and pressed his cheek to the foot which showed from under her dress. She would have drawn away her foot, but Arne said:
“Your mother is at Laugarbru, and Lavrans has ridden forth—from the houses none can see us where we sit. Surely you can let me speak this once of what is in my heart.”
Kristin answered:
“We have known all our days, both you and I, that ’twas bootless for us to set our hearts on each other.”
“May I lay my head in your lap,” said Arne, and as she did not answer, he laid his head down and twined an arm about her waist. With his other hand he pulled at the plaits of her hair.
“How will you like it,” he asked in a little, “when Simon lies in your lap thus, and plays with your hair?”
Kristin did not answer. It seemed as though a heaviness fell upon her of a sudden—Arne’s words and Arne’s head on her knee—it seemed to her as though a door opened into a room, where many dark passages led into a greater darkness; sad, and heavy at heart, she faltered and would not look inside.
“Wedded folk do not use to do so,” said she of a sudden, quickly, as if eased of a weight. She tried to see Simon’s fat round face looking up into hers as Arne was looking now; she heard his voice—and she could not keep from laughing: