and now?"

Mrs. McFee's jaws brought together with a snap. That settled the
disgraceful situation.

"Why, er--that is, certainly," the man stammered. "Of course, of
course," growing more effusive at the prospect of deliverance.

Men are only gregarious vertebrates, domesticated and evolved, and the
chances are large that it was because the Greek girl had in her time
dealt with wilder masculine beasts of the human sort; for she turned upon
the man with hell's tides aflood in her blazing eyes, much as a
bespangled lady upon a lion which has suddenly imbibed the pernicious
theory that he is a free agent. The beast in him fawned to the lash.

"That is to say, ah, afterward. To-morrow, Mrs. Eppingwell; yes,
to-morrow. That is what I meant." He solaced himself with the fact,
should he remain, that more embarrassment awaited. Also, he had an
engagement which he must keep shortly, down by the water-hole off the
hospital. Ye gods! he had never given Freda credit! Wasn't she
magnificent!

"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 massed 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