“I am a radical to-day. I am intolerant of all the intolerance of this generation of false prophets. I come up here to forget man’s stupidity. And I call my retreat in the big-timber country The Throne of Tolerance. Wait until to-morrow morning. Then, if you can look from those west windows and be intolerant of anything or anybody, you don’t belong to my clan.
“I make pilgrimage to El Trono de Tolerancia whenever I begin to choke up down in San Francisco. Mary Temple and I live simply up here in the woods until the suffocation passes, then we return to the city—and boredom. I learned to love the outdoors up in Alaska. And sometime I’m going on a great adventure. I’m going to some far-off place where man never before has set his foot. And maybe I shan’t come back.
“That’s about all there is to be told about me. Except that I never intend to marry again. Oh, yes!—and I always call Mary Temple Mary Temple. If I were to call her Mary it would sound disrespectful from one so much younger than she is. If I called her Miss Temple it would sound stiff and throw a wet blanket over our comradeship. And I’m too human, and I hope too genuine, to ape high society and call her Temple. So she’s Mary Temple to me, and everything seems to move smoothly. Now I’m through—positively through. Now tell me about the glands, Doctor Shonto.”
Shonto was smiling in quiet amusement. He could not quite make out this girl. Shonto was very much a radical himself, and he believed that she knew it. But he considered her too young to hold such a pessimistic outlook on life as she had hinted at. That she was ready to worship him because of his reputation as a specialist in gland secretions seemed apparent. The doctor had been fawned upon by many women intellectually inclined, and they had nauseated him immeasurably. He admired Charmian Reemy for her physical charm, her vivacity, and her good-fellowship; but he was experienced and therefore wary.
But he was saved for the present from committing himself by Mary Temple, who had completed her ministrations over the Dutch oven, and had carried the result to the table.
“Dinner’s ready,” she announced unceremoniously.
Whereupon Charmian rose and seated her guests.
Dr. Shonto was not a little puzzled at the behaviour of his friend. Andy Jerome had spoken to Mrs. Reemy but once since their entrance into her home, aside from muttering her name when the doctor had introduced him. It was true that their hostess had done most of the talking herself, but Shonto had managed to get in a word edgewise now and then. While Andy had showed little or no inclination to talk at all.
For the most part he had sat and almost stared at her, as if never before had he seen a beautiful girl in an evening gown. The doctor knew that this was far from the case, and that Andy ordinarily was quick to respond to pretty women. He usually could hold his own with them, too. But it seemed that Charmian Reemy had fairly swept him off his feet. Shonto felt a slight twinge of regret. He found that he himself was rather impressed by this frank, free-spoken girl of the woods and the cities.
Mary Temple occupied the foot of the table, where she sat stiffly and with an austere mien, and attended to the greater part of the serving. They were no more than seated when Charmian Reemy again began begging the gland specialist to initiate her into the mysteries of his witchcraft. But Shonto, seeking an avenue of escape, hit upon a topic that at once changed her thoughts into another, though no less interesting, channel.