"I"ll thank you for my mask, Mrs. McFee."
That lady, for the nonce speechless, turned over the article in question.
"Good-night, Miss Moloof." Mrs. Eppingwell was royal even in defeat.
Freda reciprocated, though barely downing the impulse to clasp the other"s knees and beg forgiveness,--no, not forgiveness, but something, she knew not what, but which she none the less greatly desired.
The man was for her taking his arm; but she had made her kill in the midst of the pack, and that which led kings to drag their vanquished at the chariot-tail, led her toward the door alone, Floyd Vanderlip close at heel and striving to re-establish his mental equilibrium.
V
It was bitter cold. As the trail wound, a quarter of a mile brought them to the dancer"s cabin, by which time her moist breath had coated her face frostily, while his had ma.s.sed his heavy mustache till conversation was painful. By the greenish light of the aurora borealis, the quicksilver showed itself frozen hard in the bulb of the thermometer which hung outside the door. A thousand dogs, in pitiful chorus, wailed their ancient wrongs and claimed mercy from the unheeding stars. Not a breath of air was moving. For them there was no shelter from the cold, no shrewd crawling to leeward in snug nooks. The frost was everywhere, and they lay in the open, ever and anon stretching their trail-stiffened muscles and lifting the long wolf-howl.
They did not talk at first, the man and the woman. While the maid helped Freda off with her wraps, Floyd Vanderlip replenished the fire; and by the time the maid had withdrawn to an inner room, his head over the stove, he was busily thawing out his burdened upper lip. After that he rolled a cigarette and watched her lazily through the fragrant eddies.
She stole a glance at the clock. It lacked half an hour of midnight. How was she to hold him? Was he angry for that which she had done? What was his mood? What mood of hers could meet his best? Not that she doubted herself. No, no. Hold him she could, if need be at pistol point, till Sitka Charley"s work was done, and Devereaux"s too.
There were many ways, and with her knowledge of this her contempt for the man increased. As she leaned her head on her hand, a fleeting vision of her own girlhood, with its mournful climacteric and tragic ebb, was vouchsafed her, and for the moment she was minded to read him a lesson from it. G.o.d! it must be less than human brute who could not be held by such a tale, told as she could tell it, but--bah! He was not worth it, nor worth the pain to her. The candle was positioned just right, and even as she thought of these things sacredly shameful to her, he was pleasuring in the transparent pinkiness of her ear. She noted his eye, took the cue, and turned her head till the clean profile of the face was presented. Not the least was that profile among her virtues. She could not help the lines upon which she had been builded, and they were very good; but she had long since learned those lines, and though little they needed, was not above advantaging them to the best of her ability. The candle began to flicker. She could not do anything ungracefully, but that did not prevent her improving upon nature a bit, when she reached forth and deftly snuffed the red wick from the midst of the yellow flame.
Again she rested head on hand, this time regarding the man thoughtfully, and any man is pleased when thus regarded by a pretty woman.
She was in little haste to begin. If dalliance were to his liking, it was to hers. To him it was very comfortable, soothing his lungs with nicotine and gazing upon her. It was snug and warm here, while down by the water-hole began a trail which he would soon be hitting through the chilly hours. He felt he ought to be angry with Freda for the scene she had created, but somehow he didn"t feel a bit wrathful. Like as not there wouldn"t have been any scene if it hadn"t been for that McFee woman. If he were the Governor, he would put a poll tax of a hundred ounces a quarter upon her and her kind and all gospel sharks and sky pilots. And certainly Freda had behaved very ladylike, held her own with Mrs. Eppingwell besides. Never gave the girl credit for the grit. He looked lingeringly over her, coming back now and again to the eyes, behind the deep earnestness of which he could not guess lay concealed a deeper sneer. And, Jove, wasn"t she well put up! Wonder why she looked at him so? Did she want to marry him, too? Like as not; but she wasn"t the only one. Her looks were in her favor, weren"t they? And young--younger than Loraine Lisznayi. She couldn"t be more than twenty- three or four, twenty-five at most. And she"d never get stout. Anybody could guess that the first time. He couldn"t say it of Loraine, though.
_She_ certainly had put on flesh since the day she served as model. Huh!
once he got her on trail he"d take it off. Put her on the snowshoes to break ahead of the dogs. Never knew it to fail, yet. But his thought leaped ahead to the palace under the lazy Mediterranean sky--and how would it be with Loraine then? No frost, no trail, no famine now and again to cheer the monotony, and she getting older and piling it on with every sunrise. While this girl Freda--he sighed his unconscious regret that he had missed being born under the flag of the Turk, and came back to Alaska.
"Well?" Both hands of the clock pointed perpendicularly to midnight, and it was high time he was getting down to the water-hole.
"Oh!" Freda started, and she did it prettily, delighting him as his fellows have ever been delighted by their womankind. When a man is made to believe that a woman, looking upon him thoughtfully, has lost herself in meditation over him, that man needs be an extremely cold-blooded individual in order to trim his sheets, set a lookout, and steer clear.
"I was just wondering what you wanted to see me about," he explained, drawing his chair up to hers by the table.
"Floyd," she looked him steadily in the eyes, "I am tired of the whole business. I want to go away. I can"t live it out here till the river breaks. If I try, I"ll die. I am sure of it. I want to quit it all and go away, and I want to do it at once."
She laid her hand in mute appeal upon the back of his, which turned over and became a prison. Another one, he thought, just throwing herself at him. Guess it wouldn"t hurt Loraine to cool her feet by the water-hole a little longer.
"Well?" This time from Freda, but softly and anxiously.
"I don"t know what to say," he hastened to answer, adding to himself that it was coming along quicker than he had expected. "Nothing I"d like better, Freda. You know that well enough." He pressed her hand, palm to palm. She nodded. Could she wonder that she despised the breed?
"But you see, I--I"m engaged. Of course you know that. And the girl"s coming into the country to marry me. Don"t know what was up with me when I asked her, but it was a long while back, and I was all-fired young--"
"I want to go away, out of the land, anywhere," she went on, disregarding the obstacle he had reared up and apologized for. "I have been running over the men I know and reached the conclusion that--that--"
"I was the likeliest of the lot?"
She smiled her grat.i.tude for his having saved her the embarra.s.sment of confession. He drew her head against his shoulder with the free hand, and somehow the scent of her hair got into his nostrils. Then he discovered that a common pulse throbbed, throbbed, throbbed, where their palms were in contact. This phenomenon is easily comprehensible from a physiological standpoint, but to the man who makes the discovery for the first time, it is a most wonderful thing. Floyd Vanderlip had caressed more shovel-handles than women"s hands in his time, so this was an experience quite new and delightfully strange. And when Freda turned her head against his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek till his eyes met hers, full and at close range, luminously soft, ay, and tender--why, whose fault was it that he lost his grip utterly? False to Flossie, why not to Loraine? Even if the women did keep bothering him, that was no reason he should make up his mind in a hurry. Why, he had slathers of money, and Freda was just the girl to grace it. A wife she"d make him for other men to envy. But go slow. He must be cautious.
"You don"t happen to care for palaces, do you?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Well, I had a hankering after them myself, till I got to thinking, a while back, and I"ve about sized it up that one"d get fat living in palaces, and soft and lazy."
"Yes, it"s nice for a time, but you soon grow tired of it, I imagine,"
she hastened to rea.s.sure him. "The world is good, but life should be many-sided. Rough and knock about for a while, and then rest up somewhere. Off to the South Seas on a yacht, then a nibble of Paris; a winter in South America and a summer in Norway; a few months in England--"
"Good society?"
"Most certainly--the best; and then, heigho! for the dogs and sleds and the Hudson Bay Country. Change, you know. A strong man like you, full of vitality and go, could not possibly stand a palace for a year. It is all very well for effeminate men, but you weren"t made for such a life.
You are masculine, intensely masculine."
"Think so?"
"It does not require thinking. I know. Have you ever noticed that it was easy to make women care for you?"
His dubious innocence was superb.
"It is very easy. And why? Because you are masculine. You strike the deepest chords of a woman"s heart. You are something to cling to,--big- muscled, strong, and brave. In short, because you _are_ a man."
She shot a glance at the clock. It was half after the hour. She had given a margin of thirty minutes to Sitka Charley; and it did not matter, now, when Devereaux arrived. Her work was done. She lifted her head, laughed her genuine mirth, slipped her hand clear, and rising to her feet called the maid.
"Alice, help Mr. Vanderlip on with his _parka_. His mittens are on the sill by the stove."
The man could not understand.
"Let me thank you for your kindness, Floyd. Your time was invaluable to me, and it was indeed good of you. The turning to the left, as you leave the cabin, leads the quickest to the water-hole. Good-night. I am going to bed."
Floyd Vanderlip employed strong words to express his perplexity and disappointment. Alice did not like to hear men swear, so dropped his _parka_ on the floor and tossed his mittens on top of it. Then he made a break for Freda, and she ruined her retreat to the inner room by tripping over the _parka_. He brought her up standing with a rude grip on the wrist. But she only laughed. She was not afraid of men. Had they not wrought their worst with her, and did she not still endure?
"Don"t be rough," she said finally. "On second thought," here she looked at his detaining hand, "I"ve decided not to go to bed yet a while. Do sit down and be comfortable instead of ridiculous. Any questions?"
"Yes, my lady, and reckoning, too." He still kept his hold. "What do you know about the water-hole? What did you mean by--no, never mind. One question at a time."
"Oh, nothing much. Sitka Charley had an appointment there with somebody you may know, and not being anxious for a man of your known charm to be present, fell back upon me to kindly help him. That"s all. They"re off now, and a good half hour ago."
"Where? Down river and without me? And he an Indian!"
"There"s no accounting for taste, you know, especially in a woman."
"But how do I stand in this deal? I"ve lost four thousand dollars" worth of dogs and a tidy bit of a woman, and nothing to show for it. Except you," he added as an afterthought, "and cheap you are at the price."
Freda shrugged her shoulders.
"You might as well get ready. I"m going out to borrow a couple of teams of dogs, and we"ll start in as many hours."
"I am very sorry, but I"m going to bed."