Frona made no reply, but, walking over to the candle, deliberately thrust her finger into the flame.  Then she held it up to Corliss that he might see the outraged skin, red and angry.

“And so I point the parable.  The fire is very good, but I misuse it, and I am punished.”

“You forget,” he objected.  “The fire works in blind obedience to natural law.  Lucile is a free agent.  That which she has chosen to do, that she has done.”

“Nay, it is you who forget, for just as surely Dorsey was a free agent.  But you said Lucile.  Is that her name?  I wish I knew her better.”

Corliss winced.  “Don’t!  You hurt me when you say such things.”

“And why, pray?”

“Because—­because—­”

“Yes?”

“Because I honor woman highly.  Frona, you have always made a stand for frankness, and I can now advantage by it.  It hurts me because of the honor in which I hold you, because I cannot bear to see taint approach you.  Why, when I saw you and that woman together on the trail, I—­you cannot understand what I suffered.”

“Taint?” There was a tightening about her lips which he did not notice, and a just perceptible lustre of victory lighted her eyes.

“Yes, taint,—­contamination,” he reiterated.  “There are some things which it were not well for a good woman to understand.  One cannot dabble with mud and remain spotless.”

“That opens the field wide.”  She clasped and unclasped her hands gleefully.  “You have said that her name was Lucile; you display a knowledge of her; you have given me facts about her; you doubtless retain many which you dare not give; in short, if one cannot dabble and remain spotless, how about you?”

“But I am—­”

“A man, of course.  Very good.  Because you are a man, you may court contamination.  Because I am a woman, I may not.  Contamination contaminates, does it not?  Then you, what do you here with me?  Out upon you!”

Corliss threw up his hands laughingly.  “I give in.  You are too much for me with your formal logic.  I can only fall back on the higher logic, which you will not recognize.”

“Which is—­”

“Strength.  What man wills for woman, that will he have.”

“I take you, then, on your own ground,” she rushed on.  “What of Lucile?  What man has willed that he has had.  So you, and all men, have willed since the beginning of time.  So poor Dorsey willed.  You cannot answer, so let me speak something that occurs to me concerning that higher logic you call strength.  I have met it before.  I recognized it in you, yesterday, on the sleds.”

“In me?”

“In you, when you reached out and clutched at me.  You could not down the primitive passion, and, for that matter, you did not know it was uppermost.  But the expression on your face, I imagine, was very like that of a woman-stealing cave-man.  Another instant, and I am sure you would have laid violent hands upon me.”