Harold's eyes glowed, and for the moment his brain was too busy with other considerations openly to resent the words. Then his face grew cunning. It was all plain enough: Bill loved Virginia himself. Through some code of ethics that was almost incredible to Harold, he was willing to sacrifice his own happiness for hers. And the way to pay for the rough treatment he had just had, treatment that he couldn't, at present at least, avenge in kind, was to win the girl away from him. The thing was already done. She loved him enough to search even the frozen realms of the North for him: simply by a little tenderness, a little care, he could command her to love to the full again. The fact that Bill wanted her made her infinitely more desirable to him. "You won't tell her--about Sindy?" "Not as long as you're decent. That's for you to settle for yourself--whether she finds out about her." Harold believed him. While he himself would have used the smirch as a weapon against his rival, he knew that Bill meant what he said. "I'll go," he announced. "If she's at the Gray Lake cabin, we've got plenty of time to make it before dark." XV Harold Lounsbury found to his surprise that they were not to start at once. It soon became evident that Bill had certain other matters on his mind. "Build a fire and put on some water to heat--fill up every pan you have," he instructed Sindy. He himself began to cram their little stove with wood. Harold watched with ill-concealed anxiety. "What's that for?" he asked at last. Bill straightened up and faced him. "You didn't think I was going to take you looking like you do, do you--into Virginia's presence? The first thing on the program is--a bath." Harold flushed: the red glow was evident even through the sooty accumulation on his face. "It seems to me you're going a little outside your authority as Miss Tremont's representative. I don't know that I need to have any hillbilly tell me when I need a bath." "Yes?" Bill's eyes twinkled--for the first time during their talk. "Hillbilly is right--in contrast to a cultured gentleman of cities. But let me correct you. You may not know it, but I do. And you need one now." He turned once more to Sindy. "And see what you can do about this gentleman's clothes, too; if he's got any clean underwear or any other togs, load 'em out." "Anything else?" Harold asked sarcastically. "Several things. Have you got any kind of a razor?" "No. I don't want one either."