She looked him over from head to foot, and her eyes gleamed from the white kerchief.
"So you are going, after all," she said, and her voice seemed to him the sweetest music he had ever heard. "I never believed you would," she added.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, and laughed a little. "But I suppose there are girls enough in Iceland," and then she laughed outright. "Only they can't be of much account up there."
"But I've heard they are very fine girls," he answered; "and it's a fine country, too."
She tossed her head and laughed and swung her switch.
"Fine country! The idea! Fine company, fine people and a good time. That's what a girl wants if she's worth anything."
"Then I suppose you will go back to London some day," he said.
"That doesn't follow," she answered. "There's father, you see; and, oh, what a pity he can't live at Lague!"
"Like it?" she said, her eyes full of laughter. "Six big hungry brothers coming home three times a day and eating up everything in the house--it's delightful!"
She seemed to him magnificently beautiful.
"I dare say they'll spoil you before I come back," he said, "or somebody else will."
She gave him a deliberate glance from her dark eyes, and then threw back her head and laughed. He could see the heaving of her breast. She laughed again--a fresh, merry laugh--and then he tried to laugh too, thinking of the foolish thing he had said.
"But if there are plenty of girls up there," she said, slyly glancing under her long lashes, "and they're so very wonderful, maybe you'll be getting married before you come home again?"
"Maybe so," he said quietly, and looked vacantly aside.
There was a pause. Then a sharp snap or two broke the silence and recalled him to the maiden by his side. She was only breaking up the twig she had carried.
There was another pause, in which he could hear the rippling of the river and the leaping of a fish. The heifers were munching the grass by the roadside a little ahead.
"I must go now," she said, coldly, "or they'll be out seeking me."
"I'll walk with you as far as Lague--it's dark," he said.
"No, no, you must not!" she cried, and fumbling the loose fold about her throat she turned to go.
"Only think of my brothers. Your very life would be in danger."