Act Third - Page 2

find in you as well.

ELINA. In me?

NILS LYKKE. Ay, of that our first meeting has assured me.

ELINA. And that offends you?

NILS LYKKE. Nay, in nowise; yet I could wish to see you of milder mood.

ELINA (proudly). Think you that you will ever have your wish?

NILS LYKKE. I am sure of it. I have a welcome word to say to you.

ELINA. What is it?

NILS LYKKE. Farewell.

ELINA (comes a step nearer him). Farewell? You are leaving Ostrat--so soon?

NILS LYKKE. This very night.

ELINA (seems to hesitate for a moment; then says coldly:) Then take my greeting, Sir Knight! (Bows and is about to go.)

NILS LYKKE. Elina Gyldenlove,--I have no right to keep you here; but 'twill be unlike your nobleness if you refuse to hear what I have to say to you.

ELINA. I hear you, Sir Knight.

NILS LYKKE. I know you hate me.

ELINA. You are keen-sighted, I perceive.

NILS LYKKE. But I know, too, that I have fully merited your hate. Unseemly and insolent were the words I wrote of you in my letter to Lady Inger.

ELINA. It may be; I have not read them.

NILS LYKKE. But at least their purport is not unknown to you; I know your mother has not left you in ignorance of the matter; at the least she has told you how I praised the lot of the man who----; surely you know the hope I nursed----

ELINA. Sir Knight--if it is of that you would speak----

NILS LYKKE. I speak of it only to excuse what I have done; for no other reason, I swear to you. If my fame has reached you--as I have too much cause of fear--before I myself set foot in Ostrat, you must needs know enough of my life not to wonder that in such things I should go to work something boldly. I have met many women, Elina Gyldenlove; but not one have I found unyielding. Such lessons, look you, teach a man to be secure. He loses the habit of roundabout ways----

ELINA. May be so. I know not of what metal those women can have been. For the rest, you err in thinking 'twas your letter to my mother that aroused my soul's hatred and bitterness against you. It is of older date.

NILS LYKKE (uneasily). Of older date? What mean you?

ELINA. 'Tis as you guessed:--your fame has gone before you to Ostrat, even as over all the land. Nils Lykke's name is never spoken save with the name of some woman whom he has beguiled and cast off. Some speak it in wrath, others with laughter and wanton jeering at those weak-souled creatures. But through the wrath and the laughter and the jeers rings the song they have made of you, masterful and insolent as an enemy's song of triumph. 'Tis all this that has begotten my hate for you. Your were ever in my thoughts, and I longed to meet you face to face, that you might learn that there are women on whom your soft speeches are lost--if you should think to use them.