"She is beautiful, very beautiful," she suggested. "Do you not think so?"
"As beautiful as h.e.l.l."
"But still beautiful," she insisted.
"Yes, if you will have it so. And she is as cruel, and hard, and hopeless as she is beautiful."
"Yet I came upon her, alone, by the trail, her face softened, and tears in her eyes. And I believe, with a woman"s ken, that I saw a side of her to which you are blind. And so strongly did I see it, that when you appeared my mind was blank to all save the solitary wail, _Oh, the pity of it_! _The pity of it_! And she is a woman, even as I, and I doubt not that we are very much alike. Why, she even quoted Browning--"
"And last week," he cut her short, "in a single sitting, she gambled away thirty thousand of Jack Dorsey"s dust,--Dorsey, with two mortgages already on his dump! They found him in the snow next morning, with one chamber empty in his revolver."
Frona made no reply, but, walking over to the candle, deliberately thrust her finger into the flame. Then she held it up to Corliss that he might see the outraged skin, red and angry.
"And so I point the parable. The fire is very good, but I misuse it, and I am punished."
"You forget," he objected. "The fire works in blind obedience to natural law. Lucile is a free agent. That which she has chosen to do, that she has done."
"Nay, it is you who forget, for just as surely Dorsey was a free agent.
But you said Lucile. Is that her name? I wish I knew her better."
Corliss winced. "Don"t! You hurt me when you say such things."
"And why, pray?"
"Because--because--"
"Yes?"
"Because I honor woman highly. Frona, you have always made a stand for frankness, and I can now advantage by it. It hurts me because of the honor in which I hold you, because I cannot bear to see taint approach you. Why, when I saw you and that woman together on the trail, I--you cannot understand what I suffered."
"Taint?" There was a tightening about her lips which he did not notice, and a just perceptible l.u.s.tre of victory lighted her eyes.
"Yes, taint,--contamination," he reiterated. "There are some things which it were not well for a good woman to understand. One cannot dabble with mud and remain spotless."
"That opens the field wide." She clasped and unclasped her hands gleefully. "You have said that her name was Lucile; you display a knowledge of her; you have given me facts about her; you doubtless retain many which you dare not give; in short, if one cannot dabble and remain spotless, how about you?"
"But I am--"
"A man, of course. Very good. Because you are a man, you may court contamination. Because I am a woman, I may not. Contamination contaminates, does it not? Then you, what do you here with me? Out upon you!"
Corliss threw up his hands laughingly. "I give in. You are too much for me with your formal logic. I can only fall back on the higher logic, which you will not recognize."
"Which is--"
"Strength. What man wills for woman, that will he have."
"I take you, then, on your own ground," she rushed on. "What of Lucile? What man has willed that he has had. So you, and all men, have willed since the beginning of time. So poor Dorsey willed. You cannot answer, so let me speak something that occurs to me concerning that higher logic you call strength. I have met it before. I recognized it in you, yesterday, on the sleds."
"In me?"
"In you, when you reached out and clutched at me. You could not down the primitive pa.s.sion, and, for that matter, you did not know it was uppermost. But the expression on your face, I imagine, was very like that of a woman-stealing cave-man. Another instant, and I am sure you would have laid violent hands upon me."
"Then I ask your pardon. I did not dream--"
"There you go, spoiling it all! I--I quite liked you for it. Don"t you remember, I, too, was a cave-woman, brandishing the whip over your head?
"But I am not done with you yet, Sir Doubleface, even if you have dropped out of the battle." Her eyes were sparkling mischievously, and the wee laughter-creases were forming on her cheek. "I purpose to unmask you."
"As clay in the hands of the potter," he responded, meekly.
"Then you must remember several things. At first, when I was very humble and apologetic, you made it easier for me by saying that you could only condemn my conduct on the ground of being socially unwise.
Remember?"
Corliss nodded.
"Then, just after you branded me as Jesuitical, I turned the conversation to Lucile, saying that I wished to see what I could see."
Again he nodded.
"And just as I expected, I saw. For in only a few minutes you began to talk about taint, and contamination, and dabbling in mud,--and all in relation to me. There are your two propositions, sir. You may only stand on one, and I feel sure that you stand on the last one. Yes, I am right. You do. And you were insincere, confess, when you found my conduct unwise only from the social point of view. I like sincerity."
"Yes," he began, "I was unwittingly insincere. But I did not know it until further a.n.a.lysis, with your help, put me straight. Say what you will, Frona, my conception of woman is such that she should not court defilement."
"But cannot we be as G.o.ds, knowing good and evil?"
"But we are not G.o.ds," he shook his head, sadly.
"Only the men are?"
"That is new-womanish talk," he frowned. "Equal rights, the ballot, and all that."
"Oh! Don"t!" she protested. "You won"t understand me; you can"t. I am no woman"s rights" creature; and I stand, not for the new woman, but for the new womanhood. Because I am sincere; because I desire to be natural, and honest, and true; and because I am consistent with myself, you choose to misunderstand it all and to lay wrong strictures upon me.
I do try to be consistent, and I think I fairly succeed; but you can see neither rhyme nor reason in my consistency. Perhaps it is because you are unused to consistent, natural women; because, more likely, you are only familiar with the hot-house breeds,--pretty, helpless, well-rounded, stall-fatted little things, blissfully innocent and criminally ignorant. They are not natural or strong; nor can they mother the natural and strong."
She stopped abruptly. They heard somebody enter the hall, and a heavy, soft-moccasined tread approaching.
"We are friends," she added hurriedly, and Corliss answered with his eyes.
"Ain"t intrudin", am I?" Dave Harney grinned broad insinuation and looked about ponderously before coming up to shake hands.
"Not at all," Corliss answered. "We"ve bored each other till we were pining for some one to come along. If you hadn"t, we would soon have been quarrelling, wouldn"t we, Miss Welse?"
"I don"t think he states the situation fairly," she smiled back. "In fact, we had already begun to quarrel."
"You do look a mite fl.u.s.tered," Harney criticised, dropping his loose-jointed frame all over the pillows of the lounging couch.
"How"s the famine?" Corliss asked. "Any public relief started yet?"
"Won"t need any public relief. Miss Frona"s old man was too forehanded fer "em. Scairt the daylights out of the critters, I do b"lieve.