ood
enough for a nice girl if you come to that? There are other things
beside sugary goodness. Any man who is strong can make himself good
enough for the woman he loves."

"Generally speaking, yes. But Colby Macdonald is different."

"Thank Heaven he is," she retorted impatiently. Then added after a
moment: "He isn't a Sunday-School superintendent if that's what you
mean."

"That isn't what I mean at all. But there's such a thing as a difference
between right and wrong, isn't there?"

"Oh, yes. For instance, Mr. Macdonald is right about the need of
developing Alaska and the way to do it, and you are wrong."

He could not help smiling a little at the adroit way she tried to
sidetrack him, even though he was angry at her. But he had no intention
of letting her go without freeing his mind.

"I'm talking about essential right and wrong. Miss O'Neill is idealizing
Macdonald. I don't suppose you've told her, for instance, that he made
his first money in the North running a dance hall."

"No, I haven't told her any such thing, because it isn't true," she
replied scornfully. "He owned an opera house and brought in a company of
players. I dare say they danced. That's very different, as you'd know if
you didn't have astigmatism of the mind."

"Not the way the story was told me. But let that pass. Does she know
that Macdonald beat her father out of one of the best claims on Bonanza
and was indirectly responsible for his death?"

"What's the use of talking nonsense, Gordon. You know you can't prove
that," his friend told him sharply.

"I think I can--if it is necessary."

Diane looked across at him with an impudent little tilt of the chin.
"I don't think I like you as well as I used to."

"Sorry, because I'd like you just as well, Diane, if you would stop
trying to manage your cousin into a marriage that will spoil her life,"
he answered gravely.

"How dare you say that! How dare you, Gordon Elliot!" she flung back,
furious at him. "I won't have you here talking that way to me. It's an
insult."

The fearless, level eyes of her friend looked straight at her. "I say it
because the happiness of Miss O'Neill is of very great importance to me."

"Do you mean--?" Wide-eyed, she looked her question straight at him.

"That's just what I mean, Diane."

She darned for a minute in silence. It had occurred to Diane before that
perhaps Gordon might be in love with Sheba, but she had put the thought
from her because she did