Pearl rose and shook the snow from her cloak. "Forget it," she said
scornfully. The little horse-shoe frown showed between her brows, and
her eyes as she looked at him were full of a sparkling disdain. "That
girl wasn't worth that," she snapped her fingers. "And here you've been
loping over the globe for years, because she turned you down. I should
think you'd feel like a fool." She spoke quite fearlessly, although
Seagreave had thrown up his head and stood looking at her with a white
face and compressed lips. "But that ain't the reason," she went on
shrewdly. "I know men. You like to think you quit things because of the
girl," she laughed that low, harsh, unpleasant laugh of hers. "You quit
'em because you got lazy, and anything like a responsibility was a bore.
That's straight."

Without another glance at him, she sped down the hill, like an arrow
shot from a bow.




CHAPTER XII


As that long, white winter slowly wore away there were many in the camp
who, although they had endured the strain of a wearing monotony through
many previous seasons, nevertheless suffered greatly from it; and, in
consequence, as the clock of the year began to indicate spring an almost
riotous joy was felt and expressed when it was announced through the
camp that the Black Pearl had again consented to dance for them.