"No ye don't, ye young laddy-buck," he interposed, as St. Vincent started to take Frona down the hill, "'Tis her foster-daddy sees her home this night." McCarthy laughed in his silent way and offered his arm to Frona, while St. Vincent joined in the laugh against himself, dropped back, and joined Miss Mortimer and Baron Courbertin. "What's this I'm hearin' about you an' Vincent?" Matt bluntly asked as soon as they had drawn apart from the others. He looked at her with his keen gray eyes, but she returned the look quite as keenly. "How should I know what you have been hearing?" she countered. "Whin the talk goes round iv a maid an' a man, the one pretty an' the other not unhandsome, both young an' neither married, does it 'token aught but the one thing?" "Yes?" "An' the one thing the greatest thing in all the world." "Well?" Frona was the least bit angry, and did not feel inclined to help him. "Marriage, iv course," he blurted out. "'Tis said it looks that way with the pair of ye." "But is it said that it _is_ that way?" "Isn't the looks iv it enough ?" he demanded. "No; and you are old enough to know better. Mr. St. Vincent and I--we enjoy each other as friends, that is all. But suppose it is as you say, what of it?" "Well," McCarthy deliberated, "there's other talk goes round, 'Tis said Vincent is over-thick with a jade down in the town--Lucile, they speak iv her." "All of which signifies?" She waited, and McCarthy watched her dumbly. "I know Lucile, and I like her," Frona continued, filling the gap of his silence, and ostentatiously manoeuvring to help him on. "Do you know her? Don't you like her?" Matt started to speak, cleared his throat, and halted. At last, in desperation, he blurted out, "For two cents, Frona, I'd lay ye acrost me knee." She laughed. "You don't dare. I'm not running barelegged at Dyea." "Now don't be tasin'," he blarneyed. "I'm not teasing. Don't you like her?--Lucile?" "An' what iv it?" he challenged, brazenly. "Just what I asked,--what of it?" "Thin I'll tell ye in plain words from a man old enough to be yer father. 'Tis undacent, damnably undacent, for a man to kape company with a good young girl--" "Thank you," she laughed, dropping a courtesy. Then she added, half in bitterness, "There have been others who--" "Name me the man!" he cried hotly. "There, there, go on. You were saying?" "That it's a crying shame for a man to kape company with--with you, an' at the same time be chake by jowl with a woman iv her stamp." "And why?" "To come drippin' from the muck to dirty yer claneness! An' ye can ask why?" "But wait, Matt, wait a moment. Granting your premises--" "Little I know iv primises," he growled. "'Tis facts I'm dalin' with." Frona bit her lip. "Never mind. Have it as you will; but let me go on and I will deal with facts, too. When did you last see Lucile?" "An' why are ye askin'?" he demanded, suspiciously. "Never mind why. The fact."