He pulled
himself together without letting her see the physical part of the effort
it was taking. And he tried to find something to say that would help
clear her eyes of the agony that was in them.
"That--is a most unreasonable thing--to be true," he said.
It seemed to him his lips were making words out of wood, and that the
words were fatuously inefficient compared with what he should have said,
or acted, under the circumstances.
She nodded. "It is. But the world doesn't look at it in that way. Such
things just happen."
She reached for a book which lay on the table where the tundra daisies
were heaped. It was a book written around the early phases of pioneer
life in Alaska, taken from his own library, a volume of statistical
worth, dryly but carefully written--and she had been reading it. It
struck him as a symbol of the fight she was making, of her courage, and
of her desire to triumph in the face of tremendous odds that must have
beset her. He still could not associate her completely with John Graham.
Yet his face was cold and white.
Her hand trembled a little as she opened the book and took from it a
newspaper clipping. She did not speak as she unfolded it and gave it
to him.
At the top of two printed columns was the picture of a young
and beautiful girl; in an oval, covering a small space over the
girl's shoulder, was a picture of a man of fifty or so.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228