The words she was crooning became more intelligible, and gradually North realized, to his astonishment, that she was repeating, after her own fashion, the old Saga of Brynhild the warrior maid whom Segurd found clad in helm and byrne. A queer mixture of the ride of the Valkyries, of Brynhild asleep surrounded by the eternal fires. Brynhild riding her war-horse on to the funeral pyre. Loki the Fire God. Wotan with his spear. All were mixed up in a truly wonderful whole. But still more to his astonishment it was the sword which appealed evidently above all to this small white maiden. On the sword she dwelt lovingly, and wove her tale around its prowess. And when she had brought her recital to a triumphantly shrill close at the moment when Siegmund draws the sword from the tree, she turned and looked him full in the face, half shyly, half triumphantly, wholly appealing. It was as if she said, “What do you think of that now?” North nodded at her. “That’s first rate, you know,” he said. “Which would you choose, if you had the choice? Would you choose the ring or the sword?” she asked. “Well, I’m inclined to think old Wotan’s spear is more in my line,” said North in a tone of proper thoughtful consideration. “It broke the sword once, didn’t it? At least I believe it did. But it’s rather a long time ago since I read about these things. Do you learn them at school?” “They aren’t lessons.” She looked at him with some contempt. “They’re stories.” “It’s such a long time ago since anyone told me stories,” said North apologetically. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.” She looked at him with compassion, holding the battered doll closer to her. Her eyes reminded him of a rain-washed sky. “I tell Tommy lots of stories,” she said. Another child’s voice called to her from the wood, “Moira, Moira,” and she fled away. It was like the sudden flight of a bird. “Who is the child who tells her dolls the story of the Ring?” he asked Ruth, when she rejoined him. “She is rather like one of Rackham’s Rhine Maidens herself, by the way.” “Moria Kent? Isn’t she a lovely little thing? Her mother is the village school-mistress.” “Ah, that accounts for it I suppose,” said North. Ruth opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again. Instead of what she had meant to say, she said, “Come, it is time for tea. And I have ordered strawberries and cream.” CHAPTER VIII Roger North let himself down into the cane deck-chair by his study window with a sigh of relief. The wonderful weather still held. It had been a hot morning, there were people staying in the house—people who bored North—and lunch had been to him a wearisome meal. Everyone had consumed a great deal of food and wine and talked an amazing lot of nonsense, and made a great deal of noise, and the heat had become unbearable.