in less than a minute's time,
don't you think, Mr. Hume?"

He laughed and yet his eyes hardened and narrowed upon her.

"You are welcome to what I have told you," he retorted. "It will be
common talk in twenty-four hours."

She gave no sign of having heard. Her indifference vaguely irritated
him.

"Look here, Miss Hazleton," he said significantly. "I'll tell you
something else as long as I am pouring out my heart to you," a sneer
under the words. "Before I'm done with Shandon he won't have a boot
for his foot or a leg to walk on. And anybody who ties up with him is
going to get smashed the same way!"

"It is very kind of you to warn me beforehand," she laughed softly.
"The fact that I have no interest whatever in Mr. Shandon certainly
should not lessen my gratitude to you, should it?"

"You want me to believe that?"

"Really there is only one thing which I do want you to believe," she
said in return. "Just that it would be very strange if I should care
one way or the other what you think. Isn't it perfectly glorious the
way the sun strikes the snow?"

Helga Strawn's keen womanly perception had in no way misled her
concerning her relative's nature. A compelling, masterful disposition
like Sledge Hume's grows accustomed to having its way. She was coolly
treating him as it was his role to treat others; and he did not like
the change of roles. He realised that the conversation had come to an
end. At the same time he knew that if he turned and left her, his
usual way when all had been said, he would be taking his dismissal like
a schoolboy. And he knew that as she looked out over the snow she
would be smiling.

"I have heard," he went on stubbornly, "of a woman going to see
Ettinger and Norfolk. It was you. Now you come to see Shandon. Do
you think that I am fool enough to believe that you are not interested
in the same thing I am?"

"Ah!" she said, turning swiftly. "But I did not say that I was not
interested in the irrigation of Dry Valley. I am!"

"And," his old weapon, a sneer, coming back, "you are not interested in
Shandon?"

"Not that much." She snapped her white fingers and Hume saw the
sparkle of rings. "Shandon is a fool. So is Ettinger. I am not
interested in fools." She paused a moment, her brilliant eyes meeting
his. "Are you a fool like the rest, Sledge Hume?"

She puzzled him, this woman who should have been that weak, inefficient
thing which Hume's conceit pictured al