Cheviot snatched up his hat a second time and walked to the door. Mrs. Mar, seeing him going off like that with never another word, and with that fixed wretchedness on his face, quickly crossed the room and took hold of his arm, as his hand was on the door knob. “Hildegarde is only going to do in a more open way what women are always doing,” she said.
Cheviot turned angrily, but so astonished was he to see tears on her face that he stood speechless.
“Some woman said it in a magazine the other day,” she went on, “but every woman who’s good for anything is doing it.”
“Going to Nome!”
“Going out to the battlefield in the evening to look after the wounded.”
CHAPTER XIV
Hildegarde wrote to Madeleine Smulsky, now Mrs. Jacob L. Dorn. Madeleine’s husband, being a Pacific Coast importer in a large way, might be able to advise in which of the fleet of steamers advertised to sail from San Francisco, and certain to be the first boat of the year to reach Nome—in which should a traveler put trust.