over it was thrown a light veil worked with golden stars.
"Well, Captain Olaf," she said, "have you finished weighing my poor looks against those of this northern girl in the scales of your judgment? If so, which of us tips the beam?"
"Iduna was more beautiful than ever you can have been, Augusta," I replied quietly.
She stared at me till her eyes grew quite round, then puckered up her mouth as though to say something furious, and finally burst out laughing.
"By every saint in Byzantium," she said, "or, rather, by their relics, for of live ones there are none, you are the strangest man whom I have known. Are you weary of life that you dare to say such a thing to me, the Empress Irene?"
"Am I weary of life? Well, Augusta, on the whole I think I am. It seems to me that death and after it may interest us more. For the rest, you asked me a question, and, after the fashion of my people, I answered it as truthfully as I could."
"By my head, you have said it again," she exclaimed. "Have you not heard, most innocent Northman, that there are truths which should not be mentioned and much less repeated?"
"I have heard many things in Byzantium, Augusta, but I pay no attention to any of them—or, indeed, to little except my duty."
"Now that this, this—what's the girl's name?"
"Iduna the Fair," I said.
"this Iduna has thrown you over, at which I am sure I do not wonder, what mistresses have you in Byzantium, Olaf the Dane?"
