at you, you could see my love in my eyes. But she, she looked at
you through a veil of wantonness, so that your imagination might
create what it liked behind it--? was that what attracted you? I
gave you all that I had. She took back with the left hand what she
had given with her right--was that what attracted you? Ingolf, do
you value such a character? Don't you know how she is? I know you
think she loves you. So she has told them all. Her love is a
remorseless beast of prey. She does not even spare her sister,
though she knows you are the only man I ever loved. But she MUST
have this triumph--this one, too. Are you going to yield to it?

INGOLF. You are mistaken, Hrafnhild. It is not she who parts us. I
feel that even if she did not exist, I could no longer love you as
before.

HADDA PADDA. Haven't I seen you in each other's arms? Had it been
any one else, Ingolf, any one else, I might have tried to bear it;
but SHE, in YOUR arms, that thought I cannot endure... I have no
enemy but her. The blood that flows in her veins deceives. It
understands the secrets of kinship, and knows what weapons can
beat me. ... She was but a little girl when I saw the smile of the
conqueror in her look, if she felt that young men who called on us
paid her greater attentions than me. But it did not touch me. I
was no rival. In my heart, there was only place for you. Don't you
see what life would be for me, should she triumph now, too.

INGOLF [keeps silent.]

HADDA PADDA [kneels down, grasping his knee]. Ingolf, for nine
years have I run up the stairs at home, just as you did, on the