ave been.
For the rest, you err in thinking 'twas your letter to my mother
that aroused my soul's hatred and bitterness against you. It is
of older date.

NILS LYKKE (uneasily). Of older date? What mean you?

ELINA. 'Tis as you guessed:--your fame has gone before you to
Ostrat, even as over all the land. Nils Lykke's name is never
spoken save with the name of some woman whom he has beguiled and
cast off. Some speak it in wrath, others with laughter and wanton
jeering at those weak-souled creatures. But through the wrath
and the laughter and the jeers rings the song they have made of
you, masterful and insolent as an enemy's song of triumph.
'Tis all this that has begotten my hate for you. Your were ever
in my thoughts, and I longed to meet you face to face, that you
might learn that there are women on whom your soft speeches are
lost--if you should think to use them.

NILS LYKKE. You judge me unjustly, if you judge from what rumour
has told of me. Even if there be truth in all you have heard,--
you know not the causes that have made me what I am.--As a boy of
seventeen I began my course of pleasure. I have lived full fifteen
years since then. Light women granted me all that I would--even
before the wish had shaped itself into a prayer; and what I offered
them they seized with eager hands. You are the first woman that
has flung back a gift of mine with scorn at my feet.
Think not I reproach you. Rather I honour you for it, as never
before have I honoured woman. But for this I reproach my fate--
and the thought is a gnawing pain to me--that I did not meet you
sooner---- ----
Elina Gyldenlove! Your mother has told me of you. While far
from Ostrat life ran its restless course, you went your lonely way
in silence, living in your dreams and histories. Therefore you
will understand what I have to tell you.--Know, then, that once I
too lived even such a life as yours. Methought that when I stepped
forth into the great world, a noble and stately woman would come
to meet me, and would beckon me to her and point me the path towards
a lofty goal.--I was deceived, Elina Gyldenlove! Women came to
meet me; but _she_ was not among them. Ere yet I had come to full
manhood, I had learnt to despise them all.
Was it my fault? Why were not the others even as you?--I know
the fate of your fatherland lies heavy on your soul, and you know
the part I have in these affairs---- ---- 'Tis said of me tha