"Well," he said, "I am afraid you will have to put up with my company until that fellow goes away; and I need not tell you that this is very nice for me. One hasn't much time to feel it, but it's dreadfully lonely at Fremont now and then." Hetty nodded sympathetically, for she had seen the great desolate room at Fremont where Grant and Breckenridge passed the bitter nights alone. The man's half-audible sigh was also very expressive, for after his grim life he found the brightness and daintiness of the little room very pleasant. It was sparely furnished; but there was taste in everything, and in contrast with Fremont its curtains, rugs, and pictures seemed luxurious. Without were bitter frost and darkness, peril, and self-denial; within, warmth and refinement, and the companionship of two cultured women who were very gracious to him. He also knew that he had shut himself out from the enjoyment of their society of his own will, that he had but to make terms with Torrance, and all that one side of his nature longed for might be restored to him. Larry was as free from sensuality as he was from asceticism; but there were times when the bleak discomfort at Fremont palled upon him, as did the loneliness and half-cooked food. His overtaxed body revolted now and then from further exposure to Arctic cold and the deprivation of needed sleep, while his heart grew sick with anxiety and the distrust of those he was toiling for. He was not a fanatic, and had very slight sympathy with the iconoclast, for he had an innate respect for the law, and vague aspirations after an ampler life made harmonious by refinement, as well as a half-comprehending reverence for all that was best in art and music. There are many Americans like him, and when such a man turns reformer he has usually a hard row, indeed, to hoe. "What do you do up there at nights?" asked Hetty. Larry laughed. "Sometimes Breckenridge and I sit talking by the stove, and now and then we quarrel. Breckenridge has taste, and generally smooths one the right way; but there are times when I feel like throwing things at him. Then we sit quite still for hours together listening to the wind moaning, until one of the boys comes in to tell me we are wanted, and it is a relief to drive until morning with the frost at fifty below. It is very different from the old days when I was here and at Allonby's two or three nights every week." "It must have been hard to give up what you did," said Hetty, with a diffidence that was unusual in her. "Oh, I know you did it willingly, but you must have found it was very different from what you expected. I mean that the men you wanted to smooth the way for had their notions too, and meant to do a good deal that could never please you. Suppose you found they didn't want to go along quietly, making this country better, but only to trample down whatever was there already?"