Eppingwell did not hear.The distant hum of wagging tongues rose faintly, but she was prone to believe good of people and to close her ears to evil; so she paid no heed.
Not so with Freda.She had no cause to love men, but, by some strange alchemy of her nature, her heart went out to women,--to women whom she had less cause to love.And her heart went out to Flossie, even then travelling the Long Trail and facing into the bitter North to meet a man who might not wait for her.Ashrinking, clinging sort of a girl, Freda pictured her, with weak mouth and pretty pouting lips, blow-away sun-kissed hair, and eyes full of the merry shallows and the lesser joys of life.But she also pictured Flossie, face nose-strapped and frost-rimed, stumbling wearily behind the dogs.Wherefore she smiled, dancing one night, upon Floyd Vanderlip.
Few men are so constituted that they may receive the smile of Freda unmoved; nor among them can Floyd Vanderlip be accounted.
The grace he had found with the model-woman had caused him to re-measure himself, and by the favor in which he now stood with the Greek dancer he felt himself doubly a man.There were unknown qualities and depths in him, evidently, which they perceived.He did not know exactly what those qualities and depths were, but he had a hazy idea that they were there somewhere, and of them was bred a great pride in himself.A man who could force two women such as these to look upon him a second time, was certainly a most remarkable man.Some day, when he had the time, he would sit down and analyze his strength; but now, just now, he would take what the gods had given him.And a thin little thought began to lift itself, and he fell to wondering whatever under the sun he had seen in Flossie, and to regret exceedingly that he had sent for her.Of course, Freda was out of the running.His dumps were the richest on Bonanza Creek, and they were many, while he was a man of responsibility and position.But Loraine Lisznayi--she was just the woman.Her life had been large; she could do the honors of his establishment and give tone to his dollars.
But Freda smiled, and continued to smile, till he came to spend much time with her.When she, too, rode down the street behind his wolf-dogs, the model-woman found food for thought, and the next time they were together dazzled him with her princes and cardinals and personal little anecdotes of courts and kings.She also showed him dainty missives, superscribed, "My dear Loraine,"and ended "Most affectionately yours," and signed by the given name of a real live queen on a throne.And he marvelled in his heart that the great woman should deign to waste so much as a moment upon him.But she played him cleverly, making flattering contrasts and comparisons between him and the noble phantoms she drew mainly from her fancy, till he went away dizzy with self-delight and sorrowing for the world which had been denied him so long.Freda was a more masterful woman.If she flattered, no one knew it.Should she stoop, the stoop were unobserved.If a man felt she thought well of him, so subtly was the feeling conveyed that he could not for the life of him say why or how.So she tightened her grip upon Floyd Vanderlip and rode daily behind his dogs.
And just here is where the mistake occurred.The buzz rose loudly and more definitely, coupled now with the name of the dancer, and Mrs.Eppingwell heard.She, too, thought of Flossie lifting her moccasined feet through the endless hours, and Floyd Vanderlip was invited up the hillside to tea, and invited often.This quite took his breath away, and he became drunken with appreciation of himself.Never was man so maltreated.His soul had become a thing for which three women struggled, while a fourth was on the way to claim it.And three such women!
But Mrs.Eppingwell and the mistake she made.She spoke of the affair, tentatively, to Sitka Charley, who had sold dogs to the Greek girl.But no names were mentioned.The nearest approach to it was when Mrs.Eppingwell said, "This--er--horrid woman," and Sitka Charley, with the model-woman strong in his thoughts, had echoed, "--er--horrid woman." And he agreed with her, that it was a wicked thing for a woman to come between a man and the girl he was to marry."A mere girl, Charley," she said, "I am sure she is.And she is coming into a strange country without a friend when she gets here.We must do something." Sitka Charley promised his help, and went away thinking what a wicked woman this Loraine Lisznayi must be, also what noble women Mrs.Eppingwell and Freda were to interest themselves in the welfare of the unknown Flossie.