“No?” The Countess smiled vaguely, questioningly.  She opened her lips to say more, but changed her mind and in an altered tone declared, “My dear boy, if you understood fully what I’m driving at you’d be insufferable.”  Laying her warm hand over his, she continued:  “You resent what you call my ‘motherly way,’ but if I were sixteen and you were forty it would be just the same.  Women who are afflicted with that sex appeal become men’s playthings; the man who possesses it always remains a ‘boy’ to the woman who loves him—­a bad boy, a dangerous boy, perhaps, but a boy, nevertheless.  She may, and probably will, adore him fiercely, passionately, jealously, but at the same time she will hover him as a hen hovers her chick.  He will be both son and lover to her.”

He had listened closely, but now he stirred uneasily.  “I don’t follow you,” he said.  “And it isn’t exactly pleasant for a fellow to be told that he’s a baby Don Juan, to be called a male vampire in knee-pants—­especially by the woman he’s going to marry.”  Disregarding her attempt to speak, he went on:  “What you said about other women—­the way you said it—­sounded almost as if—­ well, as if you expected there would be such, and didn’t greatly care.  You didn’t mean it that way, I hope.  You do care, don’t you, dear?  You do love me?” The face Phillips turned upon the Countess Courteau was earnest, worried.

Her fingers tightened over his hand.  When she spoke there was a certain listlessness, a certain fatigue in her tone.  “Do you need to ask that after—­what happened just now?  Of course I care.  I care altogether too much.  That’s the whole trouble.  You see, the thing has run away with me, Pierce; it has carried me off my feet, and—­that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make.”

He slipped an arm about her waist and drew her close.  “I knew it wasn’t merely an animal appeal that stirred you.  I knew it was something bigger and more lasting than that.”

“Even yet you don’t understand,” she declared.  “The two may go together and—­” But without allowing her to finish he said, vibrantly: 

“Whatever it is, you seem to find it an obstacle, an objection.  Why struggle against the inevitable?  You are struggling—­I’ve seen you fighting something ever since that first night when truth came to us out of the storm.  But, Hilda dear, I adore you.  You’re the most wonderful creature in the world!  You’re a goddess!  I feel unworthy to touch the hem of your garments, but I know—­that you are mine!  Nothing else matters.  Think of the miracle, the wonder of it!  It’s like a beautiful dream.  I’ve had doubts about myself, and that’s why I’ve let matters drift.  You see, I was a sort of unknown quantity, but now I know that I’ve found myself.  To-day I went through hell and—­I came out a man.  I’m going to play a man’s part right along after this.”  He urged her eagerly.  “We’ve a hard trip ahead of us before we reach Dawson; winter may overtake us and delay us.  We can’t continue in this way.  Why wait any longer?”