“It’s going to sound a little mad—­at first, Greggy,” chuckled Whittemore, lighting his pipe.  “It’s going to give your esthetic tastes a jar.  Look here!”

He seized Gregson by the arm and led him to the door.

The cold northern sky was brilliant with stars.  The cabin, its logs half smothered in dying masses of verdure which had climbed about it during the summer, was built on the summit of one of the wind-cropped ridges which are called mountains in the far north.  Into that north swept infinite wilderness, white and gray where the starlit tops of the spruce rose up at their feet, black in the distance.  From somewhere out of it there came the low, weeping monotone of surf beating on a shore.  Philip, with one hand on Gregson’s shoulder, pointed with the other into the lonely desolation which they were facing.

“There isn’t much between us and the Arctic Ocean, Greggy,” he said.  “See that light off there, like a great fire that has half a mind to die out one minute and flares up the next?  Doesn’t it remind you of the night we got away from Carabobo, when Donna Isobel pointed out our way to us, with the moon coming up over the mountains as a guide?  That isn’t the moon.  It’s the aurora borealis.  You can hear the wash of the Bay down there, and if you’re keen you can catch the smell of icebergs.  There’s Fort Churchill—­a rifle-shot beyond the ridge, asleep.  There’s nothing but Hudson’s Bay Company’s posts, Indian camps, and trappers between here and civilization, which is four hundred miles down there.  Seems like a quiet and peaceful country, doesn’t it?  There’s something about it that makes you thrill and wonder if this isn’t the biggest part of the universe after all.  Listen!  Hear the Indian dogs wailing down at Churchill!  That’s the primal voice in this world, the voice of the wild.  Even that beating of the surf is filled with the same thing, for it’s rolling up mystery instead of history.  It is telling what man doesn’t know, and in a language which he cannot understand.  You’re a beauty scientist, Greggy.  This must sink deep.”

“It does,” said Gregson.  “What the deuce are you getting at, Phil?”

“I’m arriving gradually and without undue haste to the point, Greggy.  I’m about to tell you why I induced you to join me up here.  I hesitate at the last word.  It seems almost brutal, taking into consideration your philosophy of beauty, to drop from all this—­from that blackness and mystery out there, from Donna Isobels and pretty eyes, down to—­fish.”

“Fish!”

“Yes, fish.”

Gregson, lighting a fresh cigarette, held the match so that the tiny flame lighted up his companion’s face for a moment.

“Look here,” he expostulated, “you haven’t got me up here to go—­ fishing?”

“Yes—­and no,” said Philip.  “But even if I have—­”

He caught Gregson by the arm again, and there was a tightness in the grip of his fingers which convinced the other that he was speaking seriously now.