IN WHICH CHERRY MALOTTE DISPLAYS A TEMPER




The unsuspected luxury of the dining-room, and the excellence of the
dinner itself had in a measure prepared Emerson for what he found in the
living-room. One thing only staggered him--a piano. The bear-skins on the
floor, the big, sleepy chairs, the reading-table littered with magazines,
the shelves of books, even the basket of fancy-work--all these he could
accept without further parleying; but a piano! in Kalvik! Observing his
look, the girl said:

"I am dreadfully extravagant, am I not? But I love it, and I have so
little to do. I read and play and drive my dog-team--that's about all."

"And rescue drowning men in time for dinner," added Boyd Emerson, not
knowing whether he liked this young woman or not. He knew this north
country from bitter experience, knew that none but the strong can survive,
and recognizing himself as a failure, her calm assurance and self-
certainty offended him vaguely. It seemed as if she were succeeding where
he had failed, which rather jarred his sense of the fitness of things.
Then, too, conventionality is a very agreeable social bond, the true value
of which is not often recognized until it is found missing, and this girl
was anything but conventional.

Again he withdrew into that silent mood from which no effort on the part
of his hostess could arouse him, and it soon became apparent from the
listless hang of his hands and the distant light in his eyes that he had
even become unconscious of her presence in the room. Observing the cause