.
Rothgar's gloating eyes detected light breaking in his victim's face,
incredulity, amazement, consternation; and he began to jeer under his breath.
"A great joy is this that you see your Fridtjof again! Why do you not go in
boldly and rescue him? Does he not look to be in need of your help?" To stifle
his laughter, he muffled his head in his cloak and leaned, shaking, against
the wall.
Flushing a deeper and deeper red, the Lord of Ivarsdale stared at the smiling
maiden. Just so, a hundred times, she had lifted her sparkling face toward
him, and he--fool that he was!--where had been his eyes? Perhaps it is not
strange that after the surprise had faded from his look, the first feeling to
show was bitterest mortification. Turning, he forced a laugh between his
teeth.
"I do not deny you the right to be amused. You speak truly that she needs no
help from me. I will hinder you no longer."
Rothgar leaped forward to bar the passage, and the mantle that fell from his
face showed no laughter of mouth or eyes. "I have not as yet spoken harm, but
it is not sure that I do not mean it," he said. "If you take it in this manner
to see how you have been tricked, you may suppose how well I like it to
remember the lies she fed to me, who would have staked my life upon her
truthfulness. It is not allowed me to take revenge on her for her treachery,
but I think I need not spare you, as you got the profit of her falseness.
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