Frona sprang from the stool and
came forward, greeting him with both hands. He had thought his
sun-picture perfect, but this fire-picture, this young creature with
the flush and warmth of ringing life, quite eclipsed it. It was a
whirling moment, as he held her two hands in his, one of those moments
when an incomprehensible orgasm quickens the blood and dizzies the
brain. Though the first syllables came to him faintly, Mrs.
Schoville's voice brought him back to himself.
"Oh!" she cried. "You know him!"
And Frona answered, "Yes, we met on the Dyea Trail; and those who meet
on the Dyea Trail can never forget."
"How romantic!"
The Gold Commissioner's wife clapped her hands. Though fat and forty,
and phlegmatic of temperament, between exclamations and hand-clappings
her waking existence was mostly explosive. Her husband secretly
averred that did God Himself deign to meet her face to face, she would
smite together her chubby hands and cry out, "How romantic!"
"How did it happen?" she continued. "He didn't rescue you over a
cliff, or that sort of thing, did he? Do say that he did! And you
never said a word about it, Mr. Corliss. Do tell me. I'm just dying
to know!"
"Oh, nothing like that," he hastened to answer. "Nothing much. I,
that is we--"
He felt a sinking as Frona interrupted. There was no telling what this
remarkable girl might say.
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