... I love you, Kristrun, only you, you, you.
[Kristrun still gazes into space, dreamily. Ingolf reaches hesitatingly
for her hand; discreetly, she withdraws it.]

INGOLF [gets up]. Did you lie to me, Kristrun? The other night, when I
told you, without speaking, for the first time, just as plainly as now
with words, that I loved you: we heard footsteps, you ran away, you
turned around and kissed me, and disappeared--did this sweet kiss then
lie, was it only a moment's impulse that played with a sacred feeling?

KRISTRUN. It was not, Ingolf.

INGOLF. But--?

KRISTRUN. It was a moment's impulse that played with a moment's impulse.

INGOLF. Perhaps for you, but not for me.

KRISTRUN. I thought your silent confession that evening was sincere.
The next day, I overheard a conversation between you and Hrafnhild, you
didn't know I was there. Perhaps she has noticed the change in you. She
used her voice, her intelligence, her beauty, her whole appeal, to get
your caresses. And she got them, many and warm.

INGOLF. You yourself say that I have changed. You yourself say that I
love you.

KRISTRUN. I myself say that you must choose between us.

INGOLF. My heart has chosen, Kristrun. And now my hand chooses. [He
slowly takes the ring off his finger.] Are you satisfied now?

KRISTRUN. Why do you ask so sadly? Do you do this half-heartedly? ... I
don't know whether I can trust you. Only yesterday, when she called you
away from me, my heart throbbed with joy. The air about me sang: It is
you he loves! But after a while, when she came out, she passed me with a
look of supremacy in her eyes. I saw it, I saw it... you are completely
in her power.

INGOLF. Before the sun sets to-night, you will have to take back those
words.

KRISTRUN. I fear the strength of her words when she pleads her own
cause. It is as though she could charm you into her power by some magic.
Do you know what she did yesterday? She came up to me afterwards, and
tried to arouse my anger, and so sure was she of her victory, that she
gloried in it. She said that I could flirt with any one I wanted--she
held the love of the finest man in Iceland.

INGOLF. Now do you think she said it because she was so sure?

KRISTRUN [does not answer]. "SHE held the love of the finest man in
Iceland!..." Do you love me, Ingolf?

INGOLF. You don't need to ask, Kristrun.

KRISTRUN. Do you love me?

INGOLF. I love you.

KRISTRUN [runs to the chaise-longue, and throws