“I see, and cleverly put; only, while you escape the charge of maltreating me yesterday; you throw yourself open to it to-day.  You make me out all that is narrow-minded and mean and despicable, which is very unjust.  Only a few minutes past I said that your way of looking at it, theoretically considered, was irreproachable.  But not so when we include society.”

“But you misunderstand me, Vance.  Listen.”  Her hand went out to his, and he was content to listen.  “I have always upheld that what is is well.  I grant the wisdom of the prevailing social judgment in this matter.  Though I deplore it, I grant it; for the human is so made.  But I grant it socially only.  I, as an individual, choose to regard such things differently.  And as between individuals so minded, why should it not be so regarded?  Don’t you see?  Now I find you guilty.  As between you and me, yesterday, on the river, you did not so regard it.  You behaved as narrow-mindedly as would have the society you represent.”

“Then you would preach two doctrines?” he retaliated.  “One for the elect and one for the herd?  You would be a democrat in theory and an aristocrat in practice?  In fact, the whole stand you are making is nothing more or less than Jesuitical.”

“I suppose with the next breath you will be contending that all men are born free and equal, with a bundle of natural rights thrown in?  You are going to have Del Bishop work for you; by what equal free-born right will he work for you, or you suffer him to work?”

“No,” he denied.  “I should have to modify somewhat the questions of equality and rights.”

“And if you modify, you are lost!” she exulted.  “For you can only modify in the direction of my position, which is neither so Jesuitical nor so harsh as you have defined it.  But don’t let us get lost in dialectics.  I want to see what I can see, so tell me about this woman.”

“Not a very tasteful topic,” Corliss objected.

“But I seek knowledge.”

“Nor can it be wholesome knowledge.”

Frona tapped her foot impatiently, and studied him.

“She is beautiful, very beautiful,” she suggested.  “Do you not think so?”

“As beautiful as hell.”

“But still beautiful,” she insisted.

“Yes, if you will have it so.  And she is as cruel, and hard, and hopeless as she is beautiful.”

“Yet I came upon her, alone, by the trail, her face softened, and tears in her eyes.  And I believe, with a woman’s ken, that I saw a side of her to which you are blind.  And so strongly did I see it, that when you appeared my mind was blank to all save the solitary wail, Oh, the pity of it! The pity of it!  And she is a woman, even as I, and I doubt not that we are very much alike.  Why, she even quoted Browning—­”

“And last week,” he cut her short, “in a single sitting, she gambled away thirty thousand of Jack Dorsey’s dust,—­Dorsey, with two mortgages already on his dump!  They found him in the snow next morning, with one chamber empty in his revolver.”