"That's it! The very thing—the old and ever young demand which man slaps into the face of the universe." The colonel searched among the scraps1 in his note-book. "See," holding up a soiled slip of typed paper, "I copied this out years ago. Listen. 'What a monstrous2 spectre is this man, this disease of the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber3; killing4, feeding, growing, bringing forth5 small copies of himself; grown up with hair like grass, fitted with eyes that glitter in his face; a thing to set children screaming. Poor soul, here for so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so incommensurate and so inconsistent; savagely6 surrounded, savagely descended7, irremediably condemned8 to prey9 upon his fellow-lives. Infinitely10 childish, often admirably valiant11, often touchingly12 kind; sitting down to debate of right or wrong and the attributes of the deity13; rising up to battle for an egg or die for an idea!'
"And all to what end?" he demanded, hotly, throwing down the paper, "this disease of the agglutinated dust?"
Corliss yawned in reply. He had been on trail all day and was yearning14 for between-blankets.
"Here am I, Colonel Trethaway, modestly along in years, fairly well preserved, a place in the community, a comfortable bank account, no need to ever exert myself again, yet enduring life bleakly15 and working ridiculously with a zest16 worthy17 of a man half my years. And to what end? I can only eat so much, smoke so much, sleep so much, and this tail-dump of earth men call Alaska is the worst of all possible places in the matter of grub, tobacco, and blankets."
"But it is the living strenuously18 which holds you," Corliss interjected.
"Frona's philosophy," the colonel sneered19.
"And my philosophy, and yours."
"And of the agglutinated dust—"
"Which is quickened with a passion you do not take into account,—the passion of duty, of race, of God!"
"And the compensation?" Trethaway demanded.
"Each breath you draw. The Mayfly lives an hour."
"I don't see it."
"Blood and sweat! Blood and sweat! You cried that after the rough and tumble in the Opera House, and every word of it was receipt in full."
"Frona's philosophy."
"And yours and mine."
The colonel threw up his shoulders, and after a pause confessed. "You see, try as I will, I can't make a pessimist20 out of myself. We are all compensated21, and I more fully22 than most men. What end? I asked, and the answer forthcame: Since the ultimate end is beyond us, then the immediate23. More compensation, here and now!"
"Quite hedonistic."
"And rational. I shall look to it at once. I can buy grub and blankets for a score; I can eat and sleep for only one; ergo, why not for two?"
Corliss took his feet down and sat up. "In other words?"
"I shall get married, and—give the community a shock. Communities like shocks. That's one of their compensations for being agglutinative."
"I can't think of but one woman," Corliss essayed tentatively, putting out his hand.
Trethaway shook it slowly. "It is she."
Corliss let go, and misgiving24 shot into his face. "But St. Vincent?"
"Is your problem, not mine."
"Then Lucile—?"
"Certainly not. She played a quixotic little game of her own and botched it beautifully."
"I—I do not understand." Corliss brushed his brows in a dazed sort of way.
Trethaway parted his lips in a superior smile. "It is not necessary that you should. The question is, Will you stand up with me?"
"Surely. But what a confoundedly long way around you took. It is not your usual method."
"Nor was it with her," the colonel declared, twisting his moustache proudly.
A captain of the North-West Mounted Police, by virtue25 of his magisterial26 office, may perform marriages in time of stress as well as execute exemplary justice. So Captain Alexander received a call from Colonel Trethaway, and after he left jotted27 down an engagement for the next morning. Then the impending28 groom29 went to see Frona. Lucile did not make the request, he hastened to explain, but—well, the fact was she did not know any women, and, furthermore, he (the colonel) knew whom Lucile would like to ask, did she dare. So he did it upon his own responsibility. And coming as a surprise, he knew it would be a great joy to her.
Frona was taken aback by the suddenness of it. Only the other day, it was, that Lucile had made a plea to her for St. Vincent, and now it was Colonel Trethaway! True, there had been a false quantity somewhere, but now it seemed doubly false. Could it be, after all, that Lucile was mercenary? These thoughts crowded upon her swiftly, with the colonel anxiously watching her face the while. She knew she must answer quickly, yet was distracted by an involuntary admiration30 for his bravery. So she followed, perforce, the lead of her heart, and consented.
Yet the whole thing was rather strained when the four of them came together, next day, in Captain Alexander's private office. There was a gloomy chill about it. Lucile seemed ready to cry, and showed a repressed perturbation quite unexpected of her; while, try as she would, Frona could not call upon her usual sympathy to drive away the coldness which obtruded31 intangibly between them. This, in turn, had a consequent effect on Vance, and gave a certain distance to his manner which forced him out of touch even with the colonel.
Colonel Trethaway seemed to have thrown twenty years off his erect32 shoulders, and the discrepancy33 in the match which Frona had felt vanished as she looked at him. "He has lived the years well," she thought, and prompted mysteriously, almost with vague apprehension34 she turned her eyes to Corliss. But if the groom had thrown off twenty years, Vance was not a whit35 behind. Since their last meeting he had sacrificed his brown moustache to the frost, and his smooth face, smitten36 with health and vigor37, looked uncommonly38 boyish; and yet, withal, the naked upper lip advertised a stiffness and resolution hitherto
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