“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good to you, as a trapper,” she began quietly, her voice of cloying sweetness. “I’m afraid I’d only get in the way and scare the little—ermines, you call them?—out of the country. Mr. Doomsdorf, do you know how well I can keep house?”
Doomsdorf looked at her, grinning in contempt, yet not wholly unresponsive to the call she was making to him. “Can’t say as I do——”
“You don’t know how I can cook, either,—make salads, and desserts, and things like that. You’d better let me stay here and help your wife with the housework. I’d really be of some value, then.”
For an instant the wind seemed to pause on the roof; and all of them sat in startled silence. The only movement was that of Sindy, imperturbable as ever, rocking back and forth in her chair; and the sound she made had a slow and regular cadence, as of a great clock. Ned sat staring at his hands; Bess’s gaze rested first on him, then on the two principals of the little drama who still sat smiling as if in understanding. Ned needn’t have worried about Lenore insisting on doing her share of the rigorous, outdoor work. The difficulty that he had anticipated in persuading her to let him lighten her burdens had not been serious, after all.
And really there was little cause for his own depression. Lenore meant exactly what she said. After all, this was his own plan,—that she should remain and help Sindy with the housework and the caring for such skins as Doomsdorf himself took, thus avoiding the heart-breaking hardship of the trap lines. Nor could he hold against her the lie in her smile. It was her whole right to use it in her own behalf: to use any wile she could to gain her ends. He was a fool to suppose that there was a moral issue involved! The old moral teaching against compromise with the devil didn’t hold here. Perhaps Bess and himself could get farther, make their toil easier, if they also fawned on Doomsdorf. The fact that he would sooner wear his hands to the bone or die beneath the lash did not imply moral superiority. It simply showed that he was of different make-up. The same with Bess; she was simply of a different breed.
And the wile was not without results. The usual scoffing refusal did not come at once to the bearded lips. Perhaps her master was flattered that Lenore was so tamed, perhaps he wished to reward her attitude of friendliness so that Bess might take example. Lenore had never moved him with the same fire as Bess: perhaps by showing leniency now, the latter could be brought to this same pass! Besides, Lenore was the weakest of the three and he had thus less desire to break what little spirit she had, rather preferring, by complying with her request, to heap fresh burdens of toil and hardship on these two proud-spirited ones before him.
“You want to stay here with Sindy and me, eh?” he commented at last. “Well, Sindy might like some help. I’m willing—but I’ll leave it up to your two friends. They’ll have to work all the harder to make up for it—especially Bess. I was going to have you two girls work together.”
He watched Ned’s face with keenest interest. The younger man flushed in his earnestness, his adoring gaze on Lenore.
“I’m only too glad to make it easier for you,” he said, his crooked, boyish smile dim at his lips. “That’s the one thing that matters—to help you all I can. In this case, though—Bess is the one to say.”
Lenore perceptibly stiffened as Ned’s gaze turned to Bess. It didn’t flatter her that her lover should even take Bess into his consideration. She had grown accustomed to receiving his every duty.