She gave him her swift, sweeping look, and the blue lights blazed in her eyes.  “I will remember you are Elizabeth’s brother,” she said.  “I will try to remember that.  But please don’t say any more.  Every moment counts; come.”

Morganstein laughed.  As long as she parried, as long as she did not refuse outright to marry him, he must keep reasonably cool.  He stooped to pick up the alpenstock she had dropped, then offered his hand down the step from the spur.  “Sorry I put it just that way,” he said.  “I’m a plain business man; used to coming straight to the point; but I guess you’ve known how much I thought of you all these years.  Had to keep on a high check-rein while Weatherbee lived, and tried my best, afterwards, to give him a year’s grace, but you knew just the same.  Know—­don’t you?—­I might take my pick out of the dozen nicest girls in Seattle to-day.  Only have to say the word.  Not one in the bunch would turn me down.  But I wouldn’t have one of ’em for second choice.  Nobody but you will do.”  He paused, then added with his narrow look:  “And what I want, you ought to know that too, I get.”

She met the look with a shake of the head and forced a smile.  “Some things are not to be bought at any price.  But, of course, I have seen—­a woman does—­” she went on hurriedly, withdrawing her hand.  “There was a time, I confess, when I did consider—­your way out.  But I dared not take it; even then, I dared not.”

“You dared not?” Frederic laughed again.  “Never thought you were afraid of me.  Never saw you afraid of anything.  But I see.  Miserable experience with Weatherbee made you little cautious.  George, don’t see how any man could have deserted you.  Trust me to make it up to you.  Marry me, and I’ll show you such a good time Weatherbee won’t amount to a bad dream.”

“I do not wish to forget David Weatherbee,” she said.

“George!” he exclaimed curiously.  “Do you mean you ever really loved him?  A man who left you, practically without a cent, before you were married a month.”

“No.”  Her voice was low; her lip trembled a little.  “No, I did not love him—­as he deserved; as I was able to love.”  She paused, then went on with decision:  “But he did not leave me unprovided for.  David Weatherbee never deserted me.  And, even though he had, though he had been the kind of man I believed him to be, it would make no difference.  I could not marry you.”

There was a silence during which they continued to follow the tracks that cross-cut the slope.  But Morganstein’s face was not pleasant to see.  All the complaisancy of the egotist who has long and successfully shaped lives to his own ends was withdrawn; it left exposed the ugly inner side of the man.  The trail was becoming soft; the damp of the Chinook began to envelop them; already the advancing film stretched like a curtain over the sun, and the three figures that had seemed parts of a shaken tapestry disappeared.  Then, presently, Banks’ voice, muffled like a voice under a blanket, rose through the pall.  And Frederic stopped to put his hand to his mouth.  “All right!  Coming!” he answered, but the shout rebounded as though it had struck a sounding board.