"Does your husband, Count--" "My husband doesn't count. That's the trouble." The speaker laughed again and without the faintest trace of embarrassment. "He has been out of the picture for years." She turned to Phillips and inquired, abruptly, "What is the packing price to Sheep Camp?" "Fifty cents a pound, coming this way. Going back it is nothing," he told her, gallantly. "I haven't much to carry, but if you'll take it I'll pay you the regular price. I'd like to leave at daylight." "You seem to be in a rush," Mr. Linton hazarded, mildly. "I am. Now, then, if you don't mind I'll turn in, for I must be in Dyea to-morrow night." Pierce Phillips had said little during the meal or thereafter, to be sure, nevertheless, he had thought much. He had indeed used his eyes to good purpose, and now he regretted exceedingly that the evening promised to be so short. The more he saw of this unconventional countess the more she intrigued his interest. She was the most unusual woman he had ever met and he was eager to learn all about her. His knowledge of women was peculiarly elemental; his acquaintance with the sex was extremely limited. Those he had known in his home town were one kind, a familiar kind; those he had encountered since leaving home were, for the most part, of a totally different class and of a type that awoke his disapproval. To a youth of his training and of his worldly experience the genus woman is divided into two species--old women and young women. The former are interesting only in a motherly way, and demand nothing more than abstract courtesy. They do not matter. The latter, on the contrary, separate themselves again into two families or suborders--viz., good women and bad women. The demarcation between the two branches of the suborder is distinct; there is nothing common to the two. Good women are good through and through--bad ones are likewise thoroughly bad. There are no intermediate types, no troublesome variations, no hybrids nor crosses.