"I used to be all softness and gentleness," he nodded concurrence.
"Was that why you left me?"
"You are so different, so dreadfully calm. You frighten me. I feel you have something terrible planned all the while. But whatever you do, don't do anything rash. Don't get excited - "
"I don't get excited any more," he interrupted. "Not since you went away."
"You have improved - remarkably," she retorted.
He smiled acknowledgment. "While I am thinking about what I shall do, I'll tell you what you will have to do - tell Mr. - er -
Haythorne who I am. It may make our stay in this cabin more - may I say, sociable?"
"Why have you followed me into this frightful country?" she asked irrelevantly.
"Don't think I came here looking for you, Theresa. Your vanity shall not be tickled by any such misapprehension. Our meeting is wholly fortuitous. I broke with the life academic and I had to go somewhere. To be honest, I came into the Klondike because I thought it the place you were least liable to be in."
There was a fumbling at the latch, then the door swung in and Haythorne entered with an armful of firewood. At the first warning, Theresa began casually to clear away the dishes.
Haythorne went out again after more wood.
"Why didn't you introduce us?" Messner queried.
"I'll tell him," she replied, with a toss of her head. "Don't think I'm afraid."
"I never knew you to be afraid, very much, of anything."
"And I'm not afraid of confession, either," she said, with softening face and voice.
"In your case, I fear, confession is exploitation by indirection, profit-making by ruse, self-aggrandizement at the expense of God."
"Don't be literary," she pouted, with growing tenderness. "I never did like epigrammatic discussion. Besides, I'm not afraid to ask you to forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive, Theresa. I really should thank you.
True, at first I suffered; and then, with all the graciousness of spring, it dawned upon me that I was happy, very happy. It was a most amazing discovery."
"But what if I should return to you?" she asked.
"I should" (he looked at her whimsically), "be greatly perturbed."
"I am your wife. You know you have never got a divorce."
"I see," he meditated. "I have been careless. It will be one of the first things I attend to."
She came over to his side, resting her hand on his arm. "You don't want me, John?" Her voice was soft and caressing, her hand rested like a lure. "If I told you I had made a mistake? If I told you that I was very unhappy? - and I am. And I did make a mistake."
Fear began to grow on Messner. He felt himself wilting under the lightly laid hand. The situation was slipping away from him, all his beautiful calmness was going. She looked at him with melting eyes, and he, too, seemed all dew and melting. He felt himself on the edge of an abyss, powerless to withstand the force that was drawing him over.
"I am coming back to you, John. I am coming back to-day . . . now."
As in a nightmare, he strove under the hand. While she talked, he seemed to hear, rippling softly, the song of the Lorelei. It was as though, somewhere, a piano were playing and the actual notes were impinging on his ear-drums.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet, thrust her from him as her arms attempted to clasp him, and retreated backward to the door. He was in a panic.
"I'll do something desperate!" he cried.
"I warned you not to get excited." She laughed mockingly, and went about washing the dishes. "Nobody wants you. I was just playing with you. I am happier where I am."
But Messner did not believe. He remembered her facility in changing front. She had changed front now. It was exploitation by indirection. She was not happy with the other man. She had discovered her mistake. The flame of his ego flared up at the thought. She wanted to come back to him, which was the one thing he did not want. Unwittingly, his hand rattled the door-latch.
"Don't run away," she laughed. "I won't bite you."
"I am not running away," he replied with child-like defiance, at the same time pulling on his mittens. "I'm only going to get some water."
He gathered the empty pails and cooking pots together and opened the door. He looked back at her.
"Don't forget you're to tell Mr. - er - Haythorne who I am."
Messner broke the skin that had formed on the water-hole within the hour, and filled his pails. But he did not return immediately to the cabin. Leaving the pails standing in the trail, he walked up and down, rapidly, to keep from freezing, for the frost bit into the flesh like fire. His beard was white with his frozen breath when the perplexed and frowning brows relaxed and decision came into his face. He had made up his mind to his course of action, and his frigid lips and cheeks crackled into a chuckle over it.
The pails were already skinned over with young ice when he picked them up and made for the cabin.
When he entered he found the other man waiting, standing near the stove, a certain stiff awkwardness and indecision in his manner.
Messner set down his water-pails.
"Glad to meet you, Graham Womble," he said in conventional tones, as though acknowledging an introduction.
Messner did not offer his hand. Womble stirred uneasily, feeling for the other the hatred one is prone to feel for one he has wronged.
"And so you're the chap," Messner said in marvelling accents.
"Well, well. You see, I really am glad to meet you. I have been - er - curious to know what Theresa found in you - where, I may say, the attraction lay. Well, well."
And he looked the other up and down as a man would look a horse up and down.
"I know how you must feel about me," Womble began.
"Don't mention it," Messner broke in with exaggerated cordiality of voice and manner. "Never mind that. What I want to know is how do you find her? Up to expectations? Has she worn well? Life been all a happy dream ever since?"
"Don't be silly," Theresa interjected.
"I can't help being natural," Messner complained.
"You can be expedient at the same time, and practical," Womble said sharply. "What we want to know is what are you going to do?"
