potent?  Or was it purely physical,—­the soft reddish-brown of her hair; her frank gray eyes, very like his own; the marvelous, smooth clearness and coloring of her skin; her voice, that was given to soft cadences?  He did not know.  No man ever quite knows what positive qualities in a woman can make his heart leap.  MacRae was no wiser than most.  But he was not prone to cherish illusions, to deceive himself.  He had imagination.  That gave him a key to many things which escape a sluggish mind.

“Well,” he said to himself at last, with a fatalistic humor, “if it comes that way, it comes.  If I am to be the goat, I shall be, and that’s all there is to it.”

Under his breath he cursed Horace Gower deeply and fervently, and he was not conscious of anything incongruous in that.  And then he lay very thoughtful and a little sad, his eyes on the smooth curve of Betty’s cheek swept by long brown lashes, the corner of a red mouth made for kissing.  His fingers were warm in hers.  He smiled sardonically at a vagrant wish that they might remain there always.

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.  MacRae wondered if the gods thus planned his destruction?

A tremulous sigh warned him.  He shut his eyes, feigned sleep.  He felt rather than saw Betty sit up with a start, release his hand.  Then very gently she moved that arm back under the blanket, reached across him and patted the covers close about his body, stood looking down at him.

And MacRae stirred, opened his eyes.

“What time is it?” he asked.

She looked at a wrist watch.  “Four o’clock.”  She shivered.

“You’ve been here all this time without a fire.  You’re chilled through.  Why didn’t you go home?  You should go now.”

“I have been sitting here dozing,” she said.  “I wasn’t aware of the cold until now.  But there is wood and kindling in the kitchen, and I am going to make a fire.  Aren’t you hungry?”

“Starving,” he said.  “But there is nothing to eat in the house.  It has been empty for months.”

“There is tea,” she said.  “I saw some on a shelf.  I’ll make a cup of that.  It will be something warm, refreshing.”

MacRae listened to her at the kitchen stove.  There was the clink of iron lids, the smell of wood smoke, the pleasant crackle of the fire.  Presently she came in with two steaming cups.

“I have a faint recollection of talking wild and large a while ago,” MacRae remarked.  Indeed, it seemed hazy to him now.  “Did I say anything nasty?”

“Yes,” she replied frankly; “perhaps the sting of what you said lay in its being partly true.  A half truth is sometimes a deadly weapon.  I wonder if you do really hate us as much, as your manner implied—­and why?”

“Us.  Who?” MacRae asked.

“My father and me,” she put it bluntly.

“What makes you think I do?” MacRae asked.  “Because I have set up a fierce competition in a business where your father has had a monopoly so long that he thinks this part of the Gulf belongs to him?  Because I resent your running down one of my boats?  Because I go about my affairs in my own way, regardless of Gower interests?”