Now the Earl saw Swanhild and thought the maid wondrous fair, and so indeed she was, as she moved scornfully to and fro in her kirtle of white.  Soft was her curling hair and deep were her dark blue eyes, and bent were her red lips as is a bow above her dimpled chin, and her teeth shone like pearls.

“Is that fair maid thy daughter, Asmund,” asked Atli.

“She is named Swanhild the Fatherless,” he answered, turning his face away.

“Well,” said Atli, looking sharply on him, “were the maid sprung from me, she would not long be called the ‘Fatherless,’ for few have such a daughter.”

“She is fair enough,” said Asmund, “in all save temper, and that is bad to cross.”

“In every sword a flaw,” answers Atli; “but what has an old man to do with young maids and their beauty?” and he sighed.

“I have known younger men who would seem less brisk at bridals,” said Asmund, and for that time they talked no more of the matter.

Now, Swanhild heard something of this speech, and she guessed more; and it came into her mind that it would be the best of sport to make this old man love her, and then to mock him and say him nay.  So she set herself to the task, as it ever was her wont, and she found it easy.  For all day long, with downcast eyes and gentle looks, she waited upon the Earl, and now, at his bidding, she sang to him in a voice soft and low, and now she talked so wisely well that Atli thought no such maid had trod the earth before.  But he checked himself with many learned saws, and on a day when the weather had grown fair, and they sat alone, he told her that his ship was bound for Orkney Isles.

Then, as though by chance, Swanhild laid her white hand in his, and on a sudden looked deep into his eyes, and said with trembling lips, “Ah, go not yet, lord!—­I pray thee, go not yet!”—­and, turning, she fled away.

But Atli was much moved, and he said to himself:  “Now a strange thing is come to pass:  a fair maid loves an old man; and yet, methinks, he who looks into those eyes sees deep waters,” and he beat his brow and thought.

But Swanhild in her chamber laughed till the tears ran from those same eyes, for she saw that the great fish was hooked and now the time had come to play him.

For she did not know that it was otherwise fated.

Gudruda, too, saw all these things and knew not how to read them, for she was of an honest mind, and could not understand how a woman may love a man as Swanhild loved Eric and yet make such play with other men, and that of her free will.  For she guessed little of Swanhild’s guilefulness, nor of the coldness of her heart to all save Eric; nor of how this was the only joy left to her:  to make a sport of men and put them to grief and shame.  Atli said to himself that he would watch this maid well before he uttered a word to Asmund, and he deemed himself very cunning, for he was wondrous cautious after the fashion of those about to fall.  So he set himself to watching, and Swanhild set herself to smiling, and he told her tales of warfare and of daring, and she clasped her hands and said: