She had no tangible reason for fearing to be alone with the trader of Katleean, and she despised herself now for the impulse that urged her to run as fast as she could from the man. Mentally upbraiding herself for her foolishness she forced a smile of greeting and in her haste to say something that would put the meeting on a commonplace basis, burst out with the inane and obvious:
"Isn't it a beautiful night, Mr. Kilbuck?"
The White Chief stopped beside her and flung back the blanket from his shoulder. There was a lawless gleam in the narrow eyes he turned on her and she was not unaware of a certain savage, picturesque appeal in him. She felt again a strange, undesired impulse that had troubled her ever since her first meeting with the man—the urge to go close and look deep into his pale, hypnotic eyes.
"On nights like this, Mrs. Boreland," he said, his tones low, almost caressing, "I always think of those lines—perhaps you know them:
"'Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night!
Night of the South Winds! Night of the few large stars!
Still, nodding Night. Mad, naked summer night!'" . . .
Despite herself, Ellen thrilled under the magic of his voice. He went on: "It's the memory of such nights that bring me back to this country year after year, and then . . . when I return . . . there is only the mocking beauty of their loneliness."
Ellen knew but little of the "good, grey poet," but at the incongruity of his quoting she gazed with a new curiosity at this tall figure in the heathen splendor of a Thlinget witch-doctor.
"To be satisfying," he said softly, "beauty like this must be shared with a loved woman. . . ." his sweeping gesture indicating the moonlit bay of Katleean. "You are the first white woman to share it with me."
He stepped closer to her. Though there were three feet between them she felt his presence as a tangible thing. She stirred uneasily. The dull throb of the drums filled a moment's space.
"I have loved many women," his low voice went on, "women—of a sort—but never anyone like. . . ." There was something tenderly personal in the omitted word. "Sometimes . . . I wonder . . . if I might not be a better man if I had someone like you to stand beside me when winter nights come, and watch the Northern Lights. . . ."