Once he passed a fleshy hand up over his forehead and brushed back his dark hair.  Once he came to a pause before his window and stood gazing out at the falling snow with hot eyes.  No such fury of jealousy had ever entered into his life before.  Never had he dreamed before of the tremendous hold this girl had obtained upon him.  His claim on her had all seemed so natural, so easy.  He had looked upon her as property that was indisputably his.  He might have learned something from his feelings when he had paraded her before Hellbeam.  But he had not done so.  Now he knew.  Now he knew the whole measure of them.  And the bitterness of his awakening was maddening.

Well, Bull Sternford should get away with no play of that sort at his expense.  He warned himself that he was no simple fool to be played with.  And if Nancy wanted the man—­But he broke away from under the lash of impotent fury, and turned to a channel of thought which was bound to serve a nature such as his in his present mood.

He returned to his desk and flung himself into the chair.  And after a while his mind settled itself to the task his mood demanded.  He sat staring straight ahead of him, and presently the heat passed out of his eyes, and they grew cold, and hard.  Later, they began to smile again—­but it was a smile of cruelty, of evil purpose.  It was a smile more unrelenting in its cruelty than any frown could have expressed.

* * * * *

For the first time Nancy’s eyes were open to the things of life as they really were.  She had tasted a certain bitterness in the early days of her girlhood.  But up till now the world had seemed something of a rose garden in which it was a delight to labour.  Up till now she had seen no reverse to the picture of life as youth had painted it for her.  Now, however, it was borne in upon her that there was a reverse, a reverse that was ugly and painfully distressing.  It was this declaration of war between her own people and the man from Labrador.

She lay in her bed that night thinking, thinking, and without any desire for sleep.  Strive as she would to search the position out logically, to estimate the true meaning of it all, to fathom the chances of this war, and to grasp the necessity for it, all these efforts only resulted in a tangle of thought revolving about the picture of a youthful man of vast stature, with eyes that were always clear-searching or smiling, and with a head of hair that reminded her of a lion’s mane.  And as she gazed upon this mental picture there were moments when it seemed to her there was grave trouble in the clear depths which so appealed to her.  The smile in her eyes seemed to fade out, to be replaced by a look that seemed to express the hurtful knowledge of a man disheartened, defeated, crushed.  They were in rival camps.  They were at war.  Each desired victory.  And yet the sight she beheld, the signs of defeat she discovered in the man’s eyes gave her no joy, no satisfaction.