"Well, Henri, you look better than I thought you would." The Count passed a caressing hand over his swollen cheek and his discolored left eye. "You heard about the fight, eh?" he inquired, thickly. "Yes--if you'd call it that." Courteau grimaced, but there was a ring of triumph and of satisfaction in his voice when he cried: "Well, what do you think of that fellow? It was like him, wasn't it, after I had caught him red-handed?" "To punch you? Quite like him," agreed the woman. "Pig! To strike a defenseless man. Without warning, too. It shows his breeding. And now"--the speaker sneered openly--"I suppose you will bail him out." "Indeed! Why should I?" "Oh, don't pretend innocence!" the Count stormed. "Don't act so unconcerned. What's your game, anyhow? Whatever it is, that fellow will cut cord-wood for the rest of the winter where the whole of Dawson can see him and say, 'Behold the lover of the Countess Courteau!'" "There's some mistake. He isn't a thief." "No?" The husband swayed a few steps closer, his face working disagreeably. "Already it is proved. He is exposed, ruined. Bah! He made of me a laughing-stock. Well, he shall suffer! A born thief, that's what he is. What have you to say?" "Why--nothing. I hoped it was a mistake, that's all." "You HOPED! To be sure!" sneered the speaker. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" When his wife said nothing the man muttered, in some astonishment: "I didn't expect you to take it so quietly. I was prepared for a scene. What ails you?" Hilda laid down her book. She turned to face her accuser. "Why should I make a scene?" she asked. "I've had nothing to do with Phillips since we parted company at White Horse. I've scarcely spoken to him, and you know it." "You don't deny there was something between you?" The woman shrugged non-committally, her lips parted in a faint, cheerless smile. "I deny nothing. I admit nothing." Although Courteau's brain was fogged, he experienced a growing surprise at the self-possession with which his wife had taken this blow which he had aimed as much at her as at Pierce Phillips; he studied her intently, a mingling of suspicion, of anger, and of admiration in his uncertain gaze. He saw, for one thing, that his effort to reach her had failed and that she remained completely the mistress of herself. She reclined at ease in her comfortable chair, quite unstirred by his derision, his jubilation. He became aware, also, of the fact that she presented an extremely attractive picture, for the soft white fur of the loose robe she wore exposed an alluring glimpse of snowy throat and bosom; one wide sleeve had fallen back, showing a smoothly rounded arm; her silken ankles, lifted to the cozy warmth of the stove, were small and trim; her feet were shod in neat high-heeled slippers. The Count admired neatly shod ladies.